BOSTON (AP) — Boston Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet had a close call Sunday when a line drive skipped off his glove and nose on its way to second base for a groundout.
Red Sox manager Alex Cora rushed to the mound with a team trainer after the left-hander narrowly missed a direct hit off the bat of Minnesota shortstop Carlos Correa in the fourth inning. The ball skimmed off Crochet’s glove as he turned his head before it hit his nose and continued its path.
Cora and the trainer asked for a towel and Crochet had a small trickle of blood coming out as he blew his nose.
“Fine,” said Crochet after Boston’s 5-4 loss to the Twins. “It barely grazed me, obviously, just more shooken up at the initial impact than anything.”
He stayed in and struck out the next batter, Jonah Bride, with a sweeper. He then gave up Brooks Lee’s single to center before Harrison Bader bounced to short, ending the inning.
“I immediately go touch my nose just to see if it felt normal,” he said. “It was numb at first, just, like I said, from the initial impact.”
Asked if there was any blood coming out, he said: “Yeah, just a little bit. Not very much at all.”
Crochet was pulled after the fifth inning, throwing 89 pitches and giving up a run on four hits with six strikeouts.
“He’s OK, obviously grinded through the last (inning),” Cora said when asked about the shorter outing.
The bigger concern may be his velocity on his fastball, which was down a couple mph most of the start.
“I’m not sure to be honest,” Crochet said, when asked why it was lower. “My in-between starts, bullpens, I’m working on my mechanics, trying to just clean up command as a whole, velocity as well. It’s just the second week of May, first week of May, that’s just kind of what I’m chalking it up to.”
The Red Sox picked up the lefty in a trade with the White Sox during the offseason and he agreed to a $170-million, six-year extension with Boston on April 1.
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