Bats stay silent as Astros sweep Red Sox, score five off Garrett Crochet

Mac Cerullo, Boston Herald on Apr 1, 2026

Published in Baseball

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It’s hard to imagine this Boston Red Sox season getting off to a worse start.

Since coming out of the gate with a standout Opening Day performance, the Red Sox have repeatedly faceplanted over the rest of their season-opening road trip. The offense hasn’t hit, the starting pitching hasn’t come through and the supposedly improved defense has remained prone to gaffes and costly miscues.

And Wednesday, not even their ace was able to save them.

Garrett Crochet endured an uncharacteristically shaky outing in Wednesday afternoon’s series finale, allowing five earned runs over five innings in the Red Sox’s eventual 6-4 loss to the Houston Astros. Carlos Correa’s three-run home run in the fifth inning was the knockout blow, and the Red Sox bats couldn’t fight back to avoid the sweep.

Now the Red Sox will have a day to lick their wounds before returning to Fenway Park for Friday’s home opener mired in a five-game losing streak.

“Not good, not good,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said postgame. “We talk about cleaning up a lot of stuff, putting the ball in play, playing good defense, running the bases better, and overall this whole week wasn’t great.”

It seemed early on that Wednesday might be different. The Red Sox took an early 1-0 after Jarren Duran led off the game with a single, reached second on a Masataka Yoshida walk and scored on an RBI knock by Willson Contreras.

Even after the Astros punched back with two runs in the bottom of the first, getting back-to-back doubles by Yordan Alvarez and Isaac Paredes and an RBI single from Christian Walker, the Red Sox answered with another run in the second to tie it at 2-2. Isiah Kiner-Falefa reached on a fielder’s choice, moved to third on a Connor Wong double and scored on a Duran groundout.

Crochet sent the Astros down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the second, and from there the lefty was off to the races. He drew a double play in the third to avoid trouble after allowing a single and a hit by pitch, struck out the side in the fourth and got a quick out to start the top of the fifth.

That’s when the trouble began.

Jose Altuve hit a single to start the rally, and Crochet hit Alvarez for his second hit batsman of the game. The lefty struck out Paredes for the second out and then got ahead of Correa 1-2 in the count, but Crochet couldn’t put the three-time All-Star away and left a sweeper down and in that Correa crushed 402 feet to left field.

He finished with five runs (four earned) allowed over five innings on six hits, no walks, two hit batsmen and seven strikeouts.

Former Red Sox catcher Christian Vazquez later extended the Astros lead with a solo home run off Danny Coulombe, which was the 11th home run allowed by Red Sox pitchers through the first six games of the season. Boston got a run back in the eighth when Wilyer Abreu hit his third homer of the season for a solo shot, and Roman Anthony came off the bench and hit an opposite field pinch hit homer to lead off the top of the ninth, but the club couldn’t close the gap any further.

Boston is now averaging 2.83 runs per game through the first week of the season, and entering Wednesday the club ranked 26th in MLB in runs scored. The club also struck out 13 times for the second straight game and punched out 38 times total in the series.

“We’re chasing a lot, we are, and we’re getting beat in the zone,” Cora said. “We’ve been chasing too but I think we’ve been getting beat in the zone so that’s something we have to adjust right away. We have to be ready for Friday.”

Now the Red Sox return home hoping being back at Fenway Park can help turn their fortunes around, and that Sonny Gray can keep the San Diego Padres at bay when he takes the mound for Friday’s home opener.

Narvaez scratched

Cora has been saying for days that Carlos Narvaez would start Wednesday’s series finale against the Astros, specifically saying he got Tuesday night off so that he’d be fresh to catch Crochet for the afternoon start. So it raised eyebrows when Narvaez was scratched from Wednesday’s lineup and Connor Wong was penciled in to catch for the second straight game.

Asked by reporters prior to the game, Cora declined to explain why Narvaez was removed, only saying it wasn’t injury related.

“Let’s keep it between me and Carlos,” Cora said when asked if the move was disciplinary, according to MassLive’s Christopher Smith. “And he understands. This is something that happens on every club. It just happens to be early in the season, and I think it’s the right thing to do.”

Cora said postgame he expects Narvaez to be back in the lineup on Friday.

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