Garrett Crochet Sends Loud Message In Red Sox's 9th-Straight Victory

Garrett Crochet hasn't just been the ace the Boston Red Sox thought they were getting--he's been so much better.

It cost a pretty penny for the Red Sox to trade for Crochet in December, and another pretty penny to extend him for six years in April. But games like Saturday's were all the evidence the Red Sox needed that no cost was too great.

In a riveting 1-0 contest with the Tampa Bay Rays, the Red Sox's ninth-straight win, Crochet single-handedly won a game that it felt like Boston had been losing for years.

Crochet completely shut down the Rays' offense, on a day the Red Sox couldn't get much going themselves. After a near miss earlier in the season, Crochet finally earned his first complete game--and his first shutout.

After two starts in which Crochet didn't have his best stuff, it was reasonable to wonder if his workload was starting to catch up to him. He entered Saturday with 120 1/3 innings pitched; his career-high is 146. But from the very first pitch, it was crystal clear the ace was on his game.

In exactly 100 pitches, Crochet put the Rays away, allowing only three hits, walking none, and striking out nine. The All-Star earned his 10th win of the season, lowering his ERA to 2.23 and putting himself right in the thick of the Cy Young Award race.

So what exactly did Crochet prove?

Well, just listen to manager Alex Cora, who called Crochet the "leader" of the rotation before the game on Saturday.

“You have to be that guy,” Cora said, per Christopher Smith of MassLive. “And we haven’t had a guy like that in a while. We’ve had some good ones throughout the years. Now that he’s the ace of the Red Sox, he’s doing an amazing job.”

He proved that no one can touch him at his best. He proved that the best leaders lead by example. And crucially, he proved that the Red Sox are worth taking a lot more seriously for the rest of the 2025 season.