Extra rest leads to big night for Crawford vs. Marlins

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MIAMI -- Perhaps overshadowed by Boston’s offensive onslaught on Tuesday evening was a key start by Kutter Crawford.

After a hot start to the season (a 1.75 ERA over his first eight starts), Crawford entered the series opener vs. the Marlins having cooled off quite a bit -- at least with regards to his shutdown stuff. He’d allowed 34 runs (28 earned) over 46 1/3 innings in his eight starts prior to Tuesday (a 5.44 ERA). (Those numbers, of course, don’t tell the whole story -- he had also thrown at least six innings in six of those starts.)

“I don't think really anything changed,” catcher Connor Wong said. “He's still getting after guys, just kind of one pitch here and there in his starts that got him in trouble.”

But when Crawford took the mound at loanDepot park, he was coming off some extra rest that allowed him to reset and recenter: Crawford’s prior start -- on June 26 vs. the Blue Jays -- was suspended due to rain just 23 pitches in, and the Red Sox had a pair of off-days that bookended their weekend series vs. the Padres.

“We kind of looked at that like it was a little de-load start,” Crawford said following Boston’s 8-3 win. “And then having an extra day with the two off-days, I felt good kind of going into this one. And mechanically everything was syncing up and I was able to pound the zone.”

Pound the zone he did. It’s one of the things that makes Crawford successful on the mound. When he’s delivering quality strikes in the zone, he’s pretty hard to hit.

Just look at his prior (completed) start on June 21 vs. the Reds (when he allowed five runs -- three earned -- on five hits and two walks over 6 1/3 innings) compared to his start Tuesday. Against the Marlins, Crawford tailored his mix to his advantage, simplifying his arsenal by increasing his four-seam fastball usage (44% vs. 29% against Cincy) and his cutter usage (33% vs. 29%) while decreasing the usage of his other pitches (his splitter, sweeper and knuckle curve).

The extra rest and the game plan worked like a charm. Crawford allowed just one run (via a homer) on three hits. He gave up no free bases or walks for the first time since April 26.

“It went pretty smoothly,” Crawford said. “The offense got ahead early, gave me a lead. And at that point, I knew my job was to attack the strike zone with as many quality strikes as I could. And I was able to do that.”

“It was really good,” manager Alex Cora said Tuesday. “The stuff was good. He threw a lot of strikes -- the fastball up. So he gave us enough today -- I think the extra rest helped him out, and he shoved.”

Crawford was at just 72 pitches when he finished the sixth inning, but the Red Sox went to the bullpen for the seventh, rather than bringing Crawford -- who was cruising -- back out. Would Crawford, a Florida native who had plenty of friends and family in attendance, have liked to have gone deeper? Maybe. But he was more than happy to give his club six innings of one-run ball and then hand it off to the 'pen.

“AC has done a good job of communicating with us when he needs us to kind of go deep,” Crawford said. “[Tuesday], obviously, my pitch count was pretty low, but he was like, ‘Hey, six is all I need from you.’ And that will tell its tale as the season goes on and the innings get up there and the workload gets up there. So he's doing a good job of protecting us, but also letting us go when we need to go.”

“We got to be careful,” Cora said. “This is the first time [a lot of our pitchers have] been in this situation, as far as posting every five days and pitching deep into the game. So we'll be mindful. I felt like that was good enough. And the bullpen was ready to go.”

Next up for Crawford will be a big division matchup, as he’ll get the start to close out Boston’s series vs. the Yankees on Sunday.