Red Sox's Garrett Crochet Explains Why He Was 'Frustrated' With Manager Alex Cora

Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora surprised a lot of people, Garrett Crochet included, when he came to the mound in the top of the sixth inning to pull his ace on Wednesday night.

Crochet was at 85 pitches through 5 1/3 innings, and more importantly, the Red Sox's bullpen was spent, having combined for 11 innings the previous two nights. It seemed like an obvious scenario for Crochet to go as deep as he could, especially since he'd only given up one run to that point.

However, Cora explained after the game that it was a "predetermined" short outing for Crochet, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive. The Red Sox are hoping to keep their prized trade acquisition fresh for the entire season, and they didn't want to change up his mentality by letting him know beforehand.

Crochet was visibly upset on the mound as Cora came to pull him, but cooled off once he had the logic behind the decision spelled out for him in the dugout. After the Red Sox went on to lose 5-1 to the New York Mets, the left-hander explained his mindset as the situation played out.

“I was frustrated,” Crochet said, per Cotillo. “Just wanted a chance to pick up my teammates, the bullpen. They’ve obviously worked really hard this series. And I wanted to try and keep them out of it as much as possible.

"He (Cora) was just kinda letting me know, ‘Hey, we’re monitoring your workload, this sort of thing.’ And I said, ‘I get it.’ I apologized for yelling a curse word on the field when I saw him coming out there. I wasn’t trying to show him up. I was just really in the moment."

If there's anything to question here, it's why the Red Sox didn't have any fresh arms ready in their bullpen after two days of running them into the ground. Justin Slaten, Aroldis Chapman, Greg Weissert, and Justin Wilson all threw in both of the first two games of the series, and Sean Newcomb had thrown 79 pitches on Sunday.

That left Liam Hendriks, who was charged with three earned runs in the seventh inning and saddled with the loss, as the only well-rested arm in the bullpen behind Crochet. Boston could have called someone up from Triple-A, such as Luis Guerrero, but that would have required sending down Weissert or Brennan Bernardino for at least 15 days.

At 25-26, the Red Sox can't afford to keep dropping games like Wednesday's, even though a big-picture view is still important. The next time Crochet has one of these pre-planned short outings, they'd better have an improved exit strategy.

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