Garrett Crochet’s brilliance this year has often come with a lament. A half-dozen times, the lefthander has been dominant — allowing two or fewer earned runs — and yet the Red Sox have somehow conjured defeats thanks to offensive deficiency.
Monday represented a welcome reversal. On a night when Crochet proved vulnerable, the Sox offense rendered his struggles irrelevant, romping over the Reds, 13-6. Though Crochet allowed five runs — matching a season-high — in six innings, he nonetheless earned his first victory in eight starts for the Sox at Fenway.
“Wish it could have been a better start, but wins are wins, and right now, we’ll take them any way that we can get them,” said Crochet (8-4, 2.26).
Expectations of a pitcher’s deal between Crochet and Cincinnati rookie Chase Burns lasted less than one inning. Burns faced nine batters and retired just one in the first inning before getting lifted, with the Sox seemingly on everything he threw — whether 100 m.p.h. heaters or sharp sliders.
The rally was set in motion by Jarren Duran’s seven-pitch leadoff walk, continued by a Reds error and RBI hits by Abraham Toro and Carlos Narváez, and amplified by a three-run homer by Trevor Story on a hanging slider that made it 5-0. Burns allowed another pair of hits and a walk before being dismissed from his second big league start, responsible for seven runs (five earned) as the Reds wondered if their pitcher had been tipping pitches.
“That’s something that you always probably need to check,” said Reds skipper Terry Francona. “Cora is one of the best at [identifying tips]. … They were certainly ready. They were coming out hacking and they were squaring it up pretty good.”
The seven-run outburst was the largest by the Sox in the first inning since 2021, and their largest in the opening stanza of a Fenway contest since 2019.
In one inning, the Sox gave Crochet more support than they’d afforded him in 14 of 17 starts this year. The grateful lefthander responded by cruising through the early innings, retiring the first 10 batters he faced (five via strikeout).
Yet that dominant beginning was followed by an unexpected unraveling. Crochet allowed three runs in the fourth (two on an Austin Hays triple to the Triangle) and another in the fifth, with Cincinnati making it a 7-4 game while eventually bringing electrifying Elly De La Cruz to the plate as the potential tying run.
But in the pivotal at-bat of the night, Crochet threw a cutter that not only sawed through De La Cruz’s bat, but left the lightning-footed switch-hitter stumbling out of the batter’s box — a slip that allowed the Sox to turn an inning-ending, 6-4-3 double play.
“He’s a fast player, so when he put it in play, I was kind of sad. I was like, ‘Man, no way we’re turning this,’” said Crochet. “And then [second baseman David Hamilton] is ripping the ball. And I looked, I was like, ‘Why is he even throwing it?’ But then I saw on the replay that he slipped. That was a huge double play.”
The Sox then reasserted themselves in rare fashion in the sixth. Wilyer Abreu crushed a fastball from reliever Joe La Sorsa deep into the Triangle, taking a moment to appreciate his blast — before the shocking realization that Fenway’s quirky dimensions would keep the rocket in the park.
“Off the bat, I knew he hit it to the deepest part, and I was kind of telling him, ‘Hey, let’s go! Let’s go!’” said Story, who was on deck behind Abreu. “You never know what can happen out there in the corner.”
Indeed. The ball somehow banged off the mesh just below the railing that connects the Red Sox bullpen to the 420-foot marker, then sprang over the head of center fielder TJ Friedl.
Friedl crumpled on the track as he tried to change directions, and with the ball trickling along the warning track in left-center, Abreu kept sprinting. He dove across the plate with the first inside-the-park homer by a Red Sox player since 2018 (Eduardo Nuñez), and the first by a Sox at Fenway since 2011 (Jacoby Ellsbury).
“That’s something that doesn’t happen every day,” beamed Abreu (via translator).
“I’m honestly jealous,” said Story.
The two sides traded solo homers in the sixth — Hays taking Crochet deep, and Duran responding with a blast inside the Pesky Pole — before Abreu punctuated his night with a grand slam against a 99 m.p.h. fastball in the eighth.
He became the first Sox player since Pokey Reese in 2004 to homer by both leaving and staying in the yard in the same contest, and the first Sox to hit an inside-the-parker and over-the-fence grand slam in the same game since Jim Tabor on July 4, 1939.
What’s the preferred mode of travel around the bases?
“Obviously the inside-the-parker, but you get tired,” said Abreu, who is hitting .324/.343/.647 in 10 games since coming off the injured list, and now has 16 homers for the year. “So for me, if you hit the ball and just jog around the bases, that’s better.”
The Sox enjoyed the luxury of such a comparison. The team has scored 31 runs in its last three games after managing just 30 in its prior 11 contests.
Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him @alexspeier.