BOSTON -- Entering Friday night with the best ERA (0.66) in the Major Leagues, Kutter Crawford seemed positioned to match zeros with Cubs rookie lefty Shota Imanaga, who has been marvelous in his transition from Japan.

While Imanaga -- who drew some interest from the Red Sox in the offseason -- continued his domination, Crawford had enough of a hiccup for the duel not to live up to expectations in his team’s 7-1 loss to Chicago at Fenway Park.

Clearly, the Red Sox would have preferred for Crawford to continue his early-season dominance. But in a way, the right-hander transformed a negative into a positive by turning in a quality start (six innings, 10 hits, three earned runs, no walks, four strikeouts) on a night he was grinding and also a victim of some soft contact that turned into good fortune for the Cubs.

“I think stuff was down,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “But like I told him, ‘If that's the bad one, we'll take it.’ That outing [last year], it was probably 4 1/3, five runs, us going to the bullpen and putting us in a bad spot the rest of the weekend. And he battled through six [tonight].”

For sure, six was the most important number for Crawford on Friday. Boston’s rotation depleted by injuries, Crawford prevented it from being a taxing night for the bullpen which is important with Josh Winckowski, who is still being stretched out, due to start on Saturday.

“All in all, I felt like I pitched pretty well,” Crawford said. “Some things didn’t go my way behind me as far as making a pitch and a guy hitting it off his fist over second base or hitting a gapper off a splitter down the right-field line.

“But overall, I can’t have my head down on a night like this. My main goal every time I take that ball is to try to throw as many strikes as possible and attack hitters, and I feel like when I look back at this outing, I was able to do that.”

The truth is that the righty simply didn’t have much margin facing Imanaga (0.98 ERA in five MLB starts). The Cubs lefty’s only blemish was a rocket solo homer to center by Tyler O’Neill in the fourth inning.

“Good split finger,” O’Neill said of Imanaga. “He was able to control the fastball. He didn’t show me any breaking balls today. But you know, he’s a good pitcher.”

Imanaga has been better than good so far, and the Red Sox saw it first-hand against a pitcher they courted in the offseason. Cora was involved in the Zoom meeting Boston’s brass had with Imanaga.

“I think he’s doing the things that we envisioned,” said Cora. “We talk about those meetings, and it's fun because you show the pitcher or the position player how we see him. There's a lot of cool stuff -- KinaTrax and all that. We show them what we do here, how we can help you maximize your talents.

“I think what they’re doing is pretty similar to the plan that we had. It’s a good fastball. We were talking about it today. I know everybody was talking about [Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu] Yamamoto, but this guy is good, too. It was a cool meeting, but now he’s with the Cubs.”

While a fair share of Japanese pitchers and position players have taken time to adjust to the Major Leagues, Imanaga has hit the ground running.

“It’s really impressive,” said Crawford. “Honestly, that’s a big adjustment coming from Japan to play in the big leagues here, and he’s doing a good job. He’s a good pitcher, throws a lot of strikes, changes speeds real well, and he’s done a really good job so far.”

Crawford can say the same about his season to date. Once again, he showcased a full mix, throwing 29 cutters, 29 four-seamers, 13 sweepers, nine splitters and five knuckle curves. He generated 12 swings and misses.

“He was awesome,” O’Neill said of Crawford. “He always gives us a chance to win when he goes out there. They were just finding holes out there, stringing some singles together. A couple good at-bats by them today. Too bad we couldn’t do a better job on our end.”

The Red Sox are eager to buck an early-season trend of not playing well at Fenway Park, where they are 3-8, compared to 11-5 on the road.

“We’re still over .500 [overall],” O’Neill said. “Obviously, we want to be better than that, but tomorrow is a new day.”