Garrett Crochet’s name is quickly becoming synonymous with hope and dominance for the Boston Red Sox. On September 24, 2025, inside Rogers Centre, the big left-hander delivered a performance that Red Sox fans will be talking about for years to come. Facing off against the Toronto Blue Jays in what is likely his final regular season start, Crochet tossed eight scoreless innings, leading the Red Sox to a commanding 7-1 victory and pushing the club to the brink of its first playoff appearance since 2021.
It’s not every day that a pitcher outshines a legend like Max Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young Award winner. But on this night, there was no question about who owned the mound. "That’s the reason he’s here, we needed an ace, we got an ace, we extended him and every five days it feels like it’s win day," manager Alex Cora told reporters after the victory. "He did an amazing job today, the guys came out swinging, shut down inning right after that and he set the tempo."
The Red Sox wasted no time jumping on Scherzer. After a leadoff strikeout, Boston’s bats erupted for five consecutive hits. Trevor Story and Alex Bregman each singled, Masataka Yoshida broke the ice with an RBI double, and Romy Gonzalez delivered a two-run single, quickly making it 3-0. Ceddanne Rafaela kept the rally alive with a single, and though Nathaniel Lowe narrowly avoided a double play, Scherzer finally escaped the inning with a foul pop-out from Wilyer Abreu.
Scherzer, who has yet to announce if he’ll return for a 19th season, allowed at least one hit in every inning he pitched. In the fifth, Yoshida tagged him for a solo home run, extending the Red Sox lead to 4-0. Scherzer’s final line: five innings, 10 hits, four runs, five strikeouts, and no walks. If this was the last regular season start of his career, it ended with a tough loss at the hands of a surging Boston squad.
Meanwhile, Crochet was in complete control. The 26-year-old southpaw scattered just three hits over eight innings, striking out six and not walking a soul. Only once did a Blue Jays baserunner reach second base. The highlight of his night—and a testament to his dominance—came in the seventh inning, when he struck out Vladimir Guerrero Jr., resulting in both Guerrero and hitting coach David Popkins being ejected for arguing the call. "We needed this game big time, and he showed up like a beast, like an ace," catcher Carlos Narvaez said. "I feel proud to be behind the plate for him every night."
Crochet’s night was one for the record books. With his first out of the game—a strikeout of George Springer—he became the first Red Sox pitcher to reach 250 strikeouts in a season since Chris Sale’s 308 in 2017. He’s also the first pitcher in Major League Baseball to hit the 250-strikeout mark this season, and the first lefty in the majors to do so since Sale. By the third inning, Crochet had also reached 200 innings pitched for the first time in his career, the first Red Sox hurler to reach that milestone since Eduardo Rodriguez in 2019. In doing so, he joined an elite club of Boston pitchers—Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens, Smoky Joe Wood, and Chris Sale—who have logged both 200 innings and 250 strikeouts in a single season.
With this likely being his last regular season start, Crochet is poised to finish with an 18-5 record, a 2.59 ERA, 255 strikeouts, 205.1 innings pitched, and 32 starts. Even before this outing, he led the majors in strikeouts and innings pitched, boasting a 31.6% strikeout rate—second-best in MLB—and holding left-handed batters to a minuscule .198 weighted on-base average. "It feels good. Not at all satisfied though," Crochet remarked after the game. "We still have a lot of games that we intend on playing and I don’t intend on that being my last one."
The Red Sox offense didn’t let up after their early outburst. In the eighth inning, Carlos Narvaez, who has struggled at the plate since the All-Star break, delivered a thunderous two-out, three-run home run to stretch the lead to 7-0. Payton Tolle took over on the mound in the ninth, surrendering a solo home run to Isiah Kiner-Falefa before closing out the win. Wilyer Abreu, recently returned from the injured list, made a heads-up play to throw out Alejandro Kirk at first base, sealing the victory and the series for Boston.
This win improved the Red Sox’s record to 4-1 on their current road trip and set up a potential playoff clinch in Thursday’s series finale against the Blue Jays. It’s a remarkable turnaround for a team that entered the season with significant question marks, especially after acquiring Crochet in a blockbuster winter trade that sent top prospects Branden Montgomery, Chase Meidroth, Wikelman Gonzalez, and Kyle Teel to the Chicago White Sox. The deal drew immediate comparisons to the 2016 Chris Sale trade—a move that led to a World Series title two years later. Now, with Crochet anchoring the rotation, fans are daring to dream of history repeating itself.
Yet, the journey hasn’t been without its hurdles. Injuries have ravaged the Red Sox pitching staff, with Dustin May, Kutter Crawford, Hunter Dobbins, Richard Fitts, and Tanner Houck all spending time on the injured list. Offensively, the loss of rookie sensation Roman Anthony for the remainder of the regular season and the absence of Marcelo Mayer for the year have been tough blows. Ceddanne Rafaela and Narvaez have struggled at the plate since the break, and the team’s strikeout numbers are among the highest in baseball. Even so, Crochet’s consistency has been a lifeline. As one recent analysis put it, "The ace being on the mound essentially guarantees a win, and his value to this team cannot be overstated."
Walker Buehler, another high-profile pitching acquisition, didn’t pan out in Boston and was designated for assignment in late August. The team’s fate, it seems, is tied to Crochet’s left arm. But as good as he’s been, even a pitcher of Crochet’s caliber can’t carry the entire club. As the Red Sox push toward October, they’ll need their supporting cast—both on the mound and at the plate—to step up and lighten the load.
After Wednesday’s victory, Alex Cora summed up the mood in the clubhouse: "It feels great, but we still have to finish it. We’ve put ourselves in a great position so far, we still have games to play, we’ve just got to take it day by day." With Crochet leading the charge, Boston is closer than ever to returning to the postseason. But one thing’s for sure: the Red Sox will need every ounce of their collective strength to make a deep run in October.
