Red Sox on precipice of playoffs after Garrett Crochet dominates Blue Jays

Mac Cerullo, Boston Herald on Sep 24, 2025

Published in Baseball

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TORONTO — Max Scherzer was one of the best pitchers of his generation, a three-time Cy Young Award winner who should cruise into Cooperstown on the first ballot once he’s eligible.

But Wednesday in Toronto, there was no question who the better pitcher is right now.

In what will likely be his final regular-season start of 2025, Garrett Crochet delivered a masterpiece for the Red Sox, pitching eight scoreless innings to lead the club to a 7-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays and put his team on the doorstep of its first playoff appearance since 2021.

The offense also turned in another strong performance, ambushing Scherzer for three runs out of the gate before later getting home runs from Masataka Yoshida and Carlos Narvaez to turn the game into a rout.

The Red Sox are now in position to potentially clinch a playoff berth as soon as Thursday night.

Boston wasted no time jumping in front.

After striking out Jarren Duran to start the game, Scherzer allowed five straight hits to Red Sox batters. Trevor Story and Alex Bregman tallied back-to-back singles, Yoshida broke the ice with an RBI double and Romy Gonzalez brought everyone home with a two-run single that made it 3-0.

Ceddanne Rafaela kept the line moving with a single, but while Nathaniel Lowe was able to beat out a potential double-play ball to extend the inning, Scherzer finally escaped after drawing a pop-out in foul territory from Wilyer Abreu.

Scherzer settled down but continued to allow at least one hit in every inning, and eventually Yoshida tagged him for a solo shot in the top of the fifth to extend the Red Sox lead to 4-0.

It was the latest in a string of big hits by Yoshida, who is now 9 for 23 with three doubles, a home run and four RBIs over the first five games of this current road trip.

Scherzer left after allowing four runs over five innings, including 10 hits, no walks and five strikeouts. The 41-year-old has not indicated whether he will return for a 19th big league season, so Wednesday could turn out to be the final regular-season start of his career.

Crochet, meanwhile, is just getting started.

The big left-hander was in total control from the beginning, limiting the Blue Jays to just three hits over his eight scoreless innings. He struck out six, did not allow a walk and only had a Blue Jays baserunner reach second base once.

His penultimate strikeout in the seventh against Vladimir Guerrero Jr. also resulted in both the Blue Jays slugger and hitting coach David Popkins being ejected for arguing the called strike three.

Crochet hit two notable milestones along the way.

The left-hander struck out George Springer for his first out of the night, and in doing so he became the first Red Sox pitcher to strike out 250 batters in a season since Chris Sale punched out 308 in 2017. He’s also the first pitcher in MLB to reach the milestone this season and the first lefty to do so across the majors since Sale.

Then, with his second out of the third inning, Crochet reached the 200-inning plateau for the first time in his career. He is now the first Red Sox pitcher to throw 200 innings since Eduardo Rodriguez in 2019.

He is also only the fifth pitcher in franchise history to record 200 innings and 250 strikeouts in a season, joining Pedro Martinez (1998, 1999, 2000), Roger Clemens (1987, 1988, 1996), Smoky Joe Wood (1912) and Sale (2017).

Assuming Crochet does not pitch in the regular season again, he will finish the season 18-5 with a 2.59 ERA and 255 strikeouts over 205 1/3 innings and 32 starts.

The Red Sox blew the game wide open late.

Following up his big two-run double in Tuesday’s series opener, Narvaez came through again with a two-out three-run home run in the top of the eighth, making it 7-0 Boston.

Crochet came back out for one more inning before giving way to Payton Tolle, who allowed a solo home run to Isiah Kiner-Falefa in the bottom of the ninth before finishing the game to clinch the series victory.

The Red Sox are now 4-1 on the current road trip and will have a chance to sweep the Blue Jays in Thursday’s finale. Four games remain in the regular season.