The Red Sox lost the war this weekend, but Garrett Crochet won the battle -- first convincingly, then barely.
Crochet carried a no-hitter against his former team into the eighth inning, when Chase Meidroth chased Crochet from the game by pulling a single through the left side of the infield. Crochet could only watch helplessly as singles by Brooks Baldwin and Matt Thaiss made it a 2-1 game with the tying run 90 feet away, but ultimately Crochet came away with the victory, and Boston avoided an embarrassing sweep.
Perfection looked attainable for more than half the afternoon, until Crochet opened the sixth inning with a five-pitch walk to Baldwin, who hadn't walked all season. Crochet bounced back by retiring the next seven with ease, after which Meidroth came to the plate with one out in the eighth. He fell behind 1-2, but after fouling back 96 over the heart of the plate, Meidroth showed some of his bat control on a tougher pitch. Crochet threw a pretty good cutter down and in, but Meidroth was able to dig it out and steer it through the left side as Crochet crouched in frustration.
"I thought that was pretty funny too," Crochet said of the irony of it being Meidroth. "That's actually the spot where I want to throw the cutter, so I'm OK with it. Looking back at the swing, I think that I did fool him a little bit, but he's a good bat-to-ball guy."
"Honestly, I've never been so happy for the opponent to get a hit," Alex Cora said. "Chase got a hit, I'm like, OK, now we can move on."
Cora swapped out one Garrett for another, but Whitlock couldn't help but be a downgrade. Baldwin greeted him by slapping a 1-0 sinker through the middle, and Meidroth both advanced to third and lured an unwise throw from Ceddanne Rafaela, because Baldwin was able to advance to second. Matt Thaiss came to the plate, and while he should've struck out looking when a quality changeup locked him up, he took advantage of the uncalled strike by rifling a worse offspeed pitch into right field.
Unfortunately, at 109.9 mph, it was hit too hard. Wilyer Abreu handled it on a hop before Baldwin reached third, leaving Justin Jirschele no choice but to hold Baldwin on Abreu's arm. Greg Jones pinch-ran for Thaiss in his White Sox debut and immediately stole second, but Joshua Palacios struck out, and Miguel Vargas flied out to keep the game at 2-1.
Two batters later, Trevor Story restored the two-run margin with a solo shot to left off Bryse Wilson, and while the White Sox were able to get the tying run to the plate against Aroldis Chapman on a two-out Andrew Vaughn single, Chapman avoided Saturday's fate by striking out Michael A. Taylor to end it.
Story ended up authoring all three Boston runs in this game, as he thwarted Shane Smith's shutout bid in the sixth.
Smith nearly matched Crochet pitch for pitch, although an Alex Bregman single spoiled his bid for history two batters into the game. A Bregman single with two outs in the sixth inning started the spoiling Smith's bid for a shutout, as that triggered Smith's late-start collapse in control.
"Heaters missing down is a sign of fatigue," Smith said. "I just have to be realizing that and adjusting. I didn't feel terrible, but the ball tells you what you're doing."
He put Wilyer Abreu on base with a four-pitch walk, and then fell behind Story 2-0. His third pitch to Story stayed up on the outer half, and Story went with the pitch to deep right field, where Brooks Baldwin appeared to have a bead on it until the wind carried it well away from him. A full-time outfielder might've had the same problems, since Andrew Vaughn had to hustle to catch a pop-up that blew closer to home plate than first base earlier in the inning, but Baldwin had no chance. Two runs came around, and that ended up being enough, even though the White Sox made the Red Sox sweat it out.
"I was shaded in a little bit there, trying to cut off a run to the plate on a single," Baldwin said. "As well as that ball was hit, it should probably have gone out without the wind. I tried to find the wall and found it a little late and by the time I found the ball again, I was not in the right place."
Smith was able to log the quality start with six innings of two-run ball, but his first MLB decision is a losing one.
Bullet points:
*Crochet's final line: 7.1 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 11 K, 65 of 96 pitches for strikes. He got 17 whiffs, 11 on the fastball. He only allowed one ball hit harder than 100 mph, on a Lenyn Sosa lineout.
*Matt Thaiss drilled Carlos Naváez with a throw after a swinging strike three on a Mike Clevinger fastball that went to the backstop. Tyler Gilbert erased the error by picking off Narvaéz
