BOSTON (AP) \u2014 The Boston Red Sox went out and picked up Garrett Crochet for a game like this.<\/p>\n
Facing the rival New York Yankees in a race for the AL\u2019s top wild-card spot, Crochet was given a big first-inning lead and matched his season high with 12 strikeouts over six innings in Boston\u2019s 6-4 victory Sunday night that salvaged the finale of a three-game series.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe already talked about it being a must-win game, just trying to do everything I could,\u201d said Crochet, who is 16-5 with a 2.63 ERA. \u201cWe were just trying to re-right the ship. The offense came out big early and I was trying to do my best to maintain the lead.”<\/p>\n
The Red Sox acquired the 26-year-old left-hander in a trade with the Chicago White Sox during the offseason. Then, they didn\u2019t wait very long to lock him up, signing him to a $170 million, six-year deal during the first week of the season. The contract starts next season.<\/p>\n
The Red Sox are 1 1\/2 games behind the Yankees, who hold the top wild-card slot. Boston is second. The top wild-card team hosts the runner-up in a three-game series.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Boston came out and scored six runs in the bottom of the first after Crochet fanned two in a 1-2-3 top half.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was huge. He set the tone early there in the top of the first,\u201d Red Sox shortstop Trevor Story said. \u201cTo put up a six-spot, it felt like a million with Crochet going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Red Sox manager Alex Cora said the team managed Crochet’s workload after the All-Star break so his big lefty would have more down the stretch.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor all those questions about workload and (velocity) down, I think the last (pitch) was 99 mph.\u201d Cora said. \u201cWe took care of him to take care of us. Hopefully the rest of the month and the next one he\u2019s a huge part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crochet knows his team is counting on him.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially as we\u2019re nearing the end here, I don\u2019t want to have any regret on my mind here in the next couple of weeks,\u201d he said. \u201cJust trying to do everything I can to put us in a good spot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked what he thought it would be like to face the Yankees in the postseason, Crochet said: \u201cIt would be cool because it means we\u2019re in the postseason. I think that\u2019s the main focus. It doesn\u2019t matter who we\u2019re playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/p>\n
Ken Powtak, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON (AP) \u2014 The Boston Red Sox went out and picked up Garrett Crochet for a game like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-144776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}