Everything was going right for the Boston Red Sox, until it suddenly wasn’t.

In their series opener on Monday night against the Houston Astros, the Red Sox jumped out to a 2-0 lead with Garrett Crochet on the mound. The ace looked to be in control through his first two innings, but the second time through the order, everything flipped on its head.

The Astros scored three runs in the third inning and two in the fourth, saddling Crochet with five earned runs and knocking him out of the game before the end of the fifth inning for the first time all season. Boston tried to rally, but they suffered their fourth loss in five games by a final of 7-6.

Aug 11, 2025; Houston, Texas, USA; Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Garrett Crochet (35) delivers a pitch during the first inning against the Houston Astros at Daikin Park. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-Imagn Images / Troy Taormina-Imagn Images

Crochet wasn’t beating around the bush after the start. He knew he’d been lit up by a talented Astros lineup, failed to stop a miniature losing streak, and taxed the bullpen ahead of the last two games with two far less reliable starters scheduled to pitch.

“Obviously, my worst one since I’ve worn the Red Sox uniform,” Crochet said, per Christopher Smith of MassLive. “So it’s tough. Not like there’s a good time for it ever, but it’s tough to come right now, for sure. We’ve got a lot of goals as a team right now.”

So what went wrong? Crochet explained that he threw more breaking pitches than usual when facing the Astros hitters for the first time on Monday. That seemingly helped them get geared up for a similar pitch mix the second time through the order.

“Without divulging too much, the obvious thing was I spun them a lot first time through the order,” Crochet said. “Typically, I save that for (the) second time through. But it was working pretty well.

“And second time through the order, then I went with my typical approach, which is spin. But I’d already done it so much throughout the game already that they were able to just be a little bit closer to pitches. They weren’t exactly hammering all of them, but it was just foul balls that ultimately forced me to come back in the zone.”

Christian Walker’s two-run double in the third inning came on a cutter, while Chas McCormick took a sinker deep to left center in the fourth. Crochet only threw the four-seam fastball and sinker a combined 37% of the time on Monday, compared to his 53% yearly average.

The big lefty will need to quickly put this start in his rearview mirror, because as he’s pitching more innings than ever before, the games are also starting to become more crucial.