Red Sox’s Garrett Crochet Responds To Being Pulled Early

The Red Sox appeared to have a savior taking the mound on Wednesday.

Garrett Crochet, one of the most reliable pitchers in all of baseball, toed the rubber in a series finale against the New York Mets. Boston, which taxed the bullpen for 11 total innings across victories on Monday and Tuesday, was expected by fans and pundits to lean on him for at least six full innings.

We got it wrong because the plan was to always keep this outing short.

Crochet threw a total of 85 pitches in an eventual 5-1 loss against the Mets, departing the game with things knotted at one in the sixth innings before his replacement gave up three runs in the seventh. Red Sox manager Alex Cora knew that his decision to pull the ace would be questioned, but he didn’t seem to have much of a choice.

“It was one of those days that we circled,” Cora said postgame, as seen on NESN. “It’s for the benefit of the player. “We’re here for the long run, and we need that guy to make his starts and for us to go to where we feel we can go. We need him.”

How did Crochet feel about being yanked after striking out one of the best bats in baseball for a third consecutive time?

“I have a lot of love and respect and trust in the front office and the coaching staff here,” Crochet said following the game. “If that’s their call, I’m going to respect that. I was prepared to go seven, eight innings, 115 pitches if that’s what it took… I’d like to think that I’m built up for that workload at this point, but obviously the focus is on being healthy in October, which I understand.”

The Red Sox are still taking a long-term approach to many of the decisions they make, which extends from stress on starting pitching to keeping prospects who are ready for the big leagues down in the minors.

Can you blame them at this point? No, but there’s an argument to be made that being too cautious could come back to bite them.

Cora, Crochet and the rest of the organization appear to be on the same page, though, which is a good starting place for what should be a long relationship.