Red Sox turn to Garrett Crochet to be stopper again vs. Twins

The Boston Red Sox look to avoid their second consecutive series loss when Garrett Crochet takes the mound for a Sunday afternoon rubber game against the Minnesota Twins.

Crochet (3-2, 2.05 ERA) is coming off the second-longest outing of his young Boston career, having pitched seven innings of two-run ball with six strikeouts in a Tuesday win over the Toronto Blue Jays.

The Red Sox ultimately went into this current homestand on a down note, though, after surrendering leads in the last two games and dropping the series to the Jays. Crochet will have to be a stopper again as Minnesota evened the weekend set with a 4-3 win Saturday.

The 26-year-old southpaw has been hard on himself as he assumes the role of staff ace in Boston, but the most recent outing was a strong bounce-back from a loss to the Seattle Mariners five days earlier.

“He had two bad innings (on April 24), man. He struck out nine in five (innings),” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said of Crochet. “Sometimes we make a big deal out of an outing that was OK for the rest of them. It wasn’t acceptable for him, but like I told him, ‘If that’s a bad one, I’ll take it.’ He gave us a chance to win.”

Not only did the Red Sox lose a Saturday game in which they held the advantage in hits and had three players record multi-hit games, but also it followed the early-afternoon news of first baseman Triston Casas rupturing his patellar tendon, requiring season-ending surgery.

Romy Gonzalez replaced Casas at first base after the injury Friday and went 3-for-4 while starting at the position Saturday. He is expected to carry the load in the immediate future, with longer-term solutions still to be determined.

“I think we need to put all options on the table,” Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said Saturday. “Asking some guys who haven’t played in the big leagues yet to assume new positions at the same time they’re trying to make that transition is a difficult task. But we need to be open-minded about solutions here.”

The Twins snapped a four-game skid with the Saturday win and reached their apparent magic offensive number by scoring four runs. This season, they are 14-3 when hitting that mark and 0-17 when not.

“We had to make plays to do it. Every time you play here, the games … always seem to be tighter,” Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli said.

The biggest swing was a sixth-inning, two-run home run by Kody Clemens in his first appearance at Fenway Park, where his father Roger — who was watching with his family in the stands — spent a majority of his long MLB career.

The younger Clemens had been just 1-for-14 in 11 games with Philadelphia and Minnesota this season before Saturday.

“(The Red Sox) came back a little bit there, so it was a great team win. Everybody fought,” Kody Clemens said. “Super special to do it here at Fenway. … I was just taking it in today. It was great.”

Righty Chris Paddack (0-3, 5.60 ERA) aims to shut down the Red Sox again after holding them scoreless across six innings of two-hit ball on May 3, 2024. He is 1-1 with a 6.48 ERA in two career starts against Boston.

However, Paddack is still in search of his first win of this season despite allowing no more than two runs in any of his last four starts. The latest was a five-inning no-decision Tuesday against the Cleveland Guardians.

Sunday marks Paddack’s seventh outing of 2025, with his numbers being skewed by a nine-run outing vs. the Chicago White Sox in 3 1/3 innings in his March 31 season debut.

–Field Level Media