BOSTON — Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet had a close call Sunday when a liner skipped off his glove and nose on its way to second base for a ground out.
Manager Alex Cora rushed to the mound with a team trainer after the left-hander narrowly missed a direct hit off the bat of Minnesota shortstop Carlos Correa in the fourth inning of the Twins’ 5-4 victory. The ball skimmed off Crochet’s glove as he turned his head before it hit his nose and continued its path.
Cora and the trainer asked for a towel and Crochet appeared to possibly have a small trickle of blood coming out as his blew his nose.
“Fine,” Crochet said after the game. “It barely grazed me, obviously. Just more shooken up at the initial impact than anything.”
He stayed in and struck out the next batter, Jonah Bride, with a sweeper. He then gave up Brooks Lee’s single to center before Harrison Bader bounced to short, ending the inning.
“I immediately go touch my nose just to see if it felt normal,” Crochet said. “It was numb at first, just, like I said, from the initial impact.”
Asked if there was any blood coming out, he said: “Yeah, just a little bit. Not very much at all.”
Crochet was pulled after the fifth inning, throwing 89 pitches and giving up a run on four hits with six strikeouts.
“He’s OK, obviously grinded through the last (inning),” Cora said when asked about the shorter outing.
The bigger concern may be his velocity on his fastball, which was down a couple mph most of the start.
“I’m not sure to be honest,” Crochet said of the lower velocity. “My in-between starts, bullpens, I’m working on my mechanics, trying to just clean up command as a whole, velocity as well. It’s just the second week of May, first week of May. That’s just kind of what I’m chalking it up to.”
The Red Sox picked up the lefty in a trade with the White Sox during the offseason and signed him to a six-year, $170 million extension on April 1.
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