Liam Hendriks returns
Packed house. Eight-degree weather. Sunny. A true ace on the mound. And, to top it all off, a walk-off win.
It was only April 19, but what transpired at Fenway Park was perhaps the best example of this young season of how good this can be for the Red Sox this season.
"It was loud today," noted Red Sox manager Alex Cora.
"It was pretty sick. I look forward to throwing a bunch more starts here. It was really special," added Sox starting pitcher Garrett Crochet.
That's the idea.
The day was punctuated by Triston Casas' first career walk-off hit, a single off the left field wall in the 10th inning that gave the Red Sox a 4-3 win over the White Sox. It was already the hosts third walk-off of the season and fourth win in a row. They are also now 11-6 since April 2.
Maybe it will be Casas' hit the day is remembered for. Or perhaps it was simply not having to be smothered by layers of clothes in an attempt to power through 30-degree baseball.
But, undoubtedly, one element of the occasion that allowed for such a picture to be painted was Crochet. Those in attendance had the "Crochet Ticket" and it proved to be worth the investment.
After the game, the pitcher downplayed his part, which in this case was throwing six shutout innings.
"It feels good, but I feel like I’m getting away with murder. It’s only a matter of time before I get caught,” he said. “I feel like the way that I’m throwing the ball isn’t up to my (standard). It’s only a matter of time before I get burned and I’d like to avoid that.
"This is not the standard that I hold myself to. I expect to have my best stuff every time out. That was obviously not the case, but you can dream and you can work toward perfection even if you’ll never reach it. That’s kind of what we do as pitchers and baseball players in general."
That's fine. But, certainly, those in attendance aren't asking for their money back. And neither are the Red Sox.
The team's postgame notes help push aside any pessimism when it came to the pitcher:
- Has pitched at least five innings and allowed two or fewer ER in each of his five starts (1 or 0 ER in 4 of them) ... Is the nine Red Sox pitcher (11th instance) in the Live Ball Era (since 1920) to do so in each of their first five games of the season, first since Chris Sale in 2017 (6 straight).
- Became the seventh Red Sox pitcher in the Live Ball Era to post a 1.13 ERA or lower within their first 5 starts of the season, joining Kutter Crawford in 2024 (0.66 ERA) as the most recent to do so (previous: Tim Wakefield in 1995; 1.12 ERA).
- Has allowed one or zero earned runs and gone at least 5.2 IP in each of his last 4 starts ... Is the first Red Sox pitcher to record such a streak since Tanner Houck from 5/15-31/24 (also 4).
- Has allowed only two extra-base hits this season (0 today), tied for second fewest in MLB among pitchers with at least 20.0 IP (1st: TB's Drew Rasmussen-0).
The point is that this was a pretty good place to land on April 19.
"When you have guys like that, I’ve been saying all along, they stop losing streaks and they continue the winning streaks," Cora said. "That’s what he did today."