The Red Sox and Mariners motored through Thursday\u2019s rubber match in Seattle.<\/p>\n
It took Boston just two hours and 14 minutes to complete a 3-1 victory for their fourth consecutive series win.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been saying all along, if we pitch, we\u2019re gonna have a shot,\u201d Alex Cora, who moved into a tie with Pinky Higgins for third-most wins in Red Sox managerial history, told reporters.<\/p>\n
Walker Buehler\u2019s early implosion in Wednesday night\u2019s loss had snapped Boston\u2019s streak of quality starts, but Garrett Crochet began anew. After issuing five walks on 110 pitches when he faced the Mariners at Fenway on April 24, Boston\u2019s new ace was unyielding in Thursday\u2019s finale: he held the home team to one earned run on six hits and struck out eight in his six innings. He\u00a0threw 96 pitches, 70 for strikes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was grinding through the first couple innings, didn\u2019t really have the four-seam, so just ultimately pivoted and rode the cutter pretty hard, and was able to have some weak contact with it,\u201d Crochet told reporters.<\/p>\n
Without Crochet\u2019s fastball not playing the way he wanted, the second inning was a long one. Randy Arozarena led off with a first-pitch double on a four-seamer, who advanced to third on a Mitch Garver flyout and scored the Mariners\u2019 only run on a wild pitch. Donovan Solano and Ben Williamson followed with back-to-back singles before Crochet was able to get a force-out and strikeout looking to escape the jam.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey always talk about the 10 days that you have your best stuff, 10 days that you got average, and 10 days you got your worst, so it\u2019s like 20 starts out of the year you just got to find a way,\u201d Crochet said. \u201cAnd today was one of those days.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sox southpaw followed with a 1-2-3 third, using his cutter and changeup to shut down each batter. Between the fourth and sixth innings, he used his sweeper for the put-away pitch on all but one out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why he got paid the big bucks,\u201d Cora said of his starter. \u201cHe\u2019s an ace. He understands what comes with the territory, not only on the field but off the field. One of the leaders in the clubhouse, you know, and every five days (when he starts) is a special day for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mariners starter Luis Castillo also gave his team six innings, walked two, and struck out five. The righty held the Red Sox to three hits, but two were home runs. Rookie infielder Marcelo Mayer went yard on the first pitch of the second inning, and Trevor Story retook the lead with a two-run blast to left-center in the fourth (scoring Mayer, who\u2019d drawn a walk).<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a great swing by Trevor,\u201d Cora said. After an ice-cold stretch, the veteran shortstop is having a scorching June: through 16 games he\u2019s hitting .283 with a .828 OPS, four doubles, three homers and 15 RBI.<\/p>\n
Boston\u2019s only other hit in the contest was a single by Connor Wong. The struggling catcher has 10 hits on the season, none for extra bases.<\/p>\n
The Red Sox went 1-2-3 in the fifth, seventh, eighth and ninth, interrupted only by Roman Anthony\u2019s walk and first career stolen base in the sixth. Boston did have several well-struck balls land where they shouldn\u2019t, including a fifth-inning lineout from the slumping Jarren Duran. At 115.2 mph, it was the hardest-hit ball of the contest.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a low-production stretch in general; after putting up at least six runs in six of seven games between June 2-9 \u2013 including three double-digit games between June 4-8), Boston has scored no more than four runs in each of the subsequent eight games. Their seven wins largely stem from stupendous pitching performances.<\/p>\n
Cora threw a curveball of his own with his bullpen order. Garrett Whitlock pitched a perfect seventh inning, so it was surprising to see closer Aroldis Chapman take the mound in the eighth. The veteran closer hadn\u2019t pitched earlier than the ninth inning since April 21, but he got the Mariners in order, too.<\/p>\n
Greg Weissert\u2019s ninth inning began on shaky footing when he had difficulty locating his four-seamer and issued a one-out walk to Randy Arozarena, but he was able to slam the door by getting pinch-hitter Dominic Canzone to ground into a double play.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been huge,\u201d Crochet said of Weissert. \u201cEven before (Justin Slaten) went down, he was starting to creep into those leverage spots \u2026 it\u2019s been what we kind of expected out of him, quite frankly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Boston bullpen pitched 10.2 scoreless innings over the series.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody\u2019s got a job to do,\u201d Weissert told NESN\u2019s Jahmai Webster. \u201cAs tough as it was trading Raffy (Devers), I think we all kind of banded together and just trying to squeak out wins here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe momentum was building for a while, and I think that this past week, it\u2019s really started to bubble over the top,\u201d said Crochet. \u201cI think that right now we\u2019re playing the kind of baseball that we need to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Red Sox are 39-37. They have Thursday off. On Friday, they\u2019ll face Devers.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: June 18, 2025 at 6:49 PM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Red Sox and Mariners motored through Thursday\u2019s rubber match in Seattle. It took Boston just two hours…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2392],"tags":[858,5,48,922,1248,620,4,863,619,65,3235,1035],"class_list":{"0":"post-114634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-mariners","8":"tag-alex-cora","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-boston-red-sox","11":"tag-garrett-crochet","12":"tag-marcelo-mayer","13":"tag-mariners","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-rafael-devers","16":"tag-seattle","17":"tag-seattle-mariners","18":"tag-seattlemariners","19":"tag-trevor-story"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114708094903781311","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}