Philadelphia Phillies’ Alec Bohm, center, celebrates with third base coach Dusty Wathan after hitting a three-run home run against Garrett Crochet during the third inning Friday, April 19, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP)
Matt Slocum/AP Photos
PHILADELPHIA – One of the few good things about this loss-after-loss-after-loss start to the White Sox season has been Garrett Crochet, the 24-year-old Opening Day left-hander who dazzled through the first three starts of his career.
But even Crochet’s refreshingly good – and much needed — moments for this struggling crew have their limits. In the Sox’ 7-0 loss Friday, the Phillies’ Alec Bohm hit one three-run homer to right field against Crochet and another to left in his first two at-bats, and Whit Merrifield added a solo shot to pin seven runs on the lefty’s ERA that will read 5.61 the next time he takes the ball.
Crochet pitched three-plus innings and was pulled by manager Pedro Grifol after Merrifield’s poke, trailing 7-0.
This start follows Crochet allowing five runs while striking out 10 in 4 2/3 innings against the Reds Saturday.
As it turned out, Crochet may have needed no-hit stuff to beat the Phillies. That’s what Phillies Spencer Turnbull had, blanking the Sox without a hit until Gavin Sheets singled with one out in the seventh. The Sox finished with two hits and were shut out for the seventh time.
And they face Zach Wheeler and Aaron Nola in the last two games of the series.
Until Friday, it had been a good week for the Sox’ up-and-coming starting pitchers with Nick Nastrini and Jonathan Cannon shining in back-to-back debuts. Nastrini gets his second start Sunday against the Phillies, and Cannon gets his Monday at the Twins.
How many more starts for Nastrini and Cannon remains to be seen.
“We’re going to stay on point for one or two times around see what we got,” Grifol said. “There’s a lot of moving parts to it. We have a lot of uncharted water here, a couple young kids doing it for the first time. Crochet doing it for the first time. We’ll keep it up for now and see what happens.”
Mike Clevinger is “throwing well” in Arizona and will start pitching at Triple-A Charlotte soon. And Brad Keller is ramping up at Charlotte, so the burden of carrying the rotation won’t rest solely on the young guns.
“We’re not getting too far ahead of ourselves,” Grifol said. “We’ll just run it again and see where we’re at. If it continues to show itself the right way, we’ll run it again. But every time Crochet toes the rubber, uncharted waters. Every time these kids toe the rubber, uncharted waters.
‘Keep evaluating. That’s the most important part of this thing. Keep teaching, developing, evaluating and find ways to win baseball games.”
Crochet might have avoided Bohm’s first homer with a little help from his infield.
Trea Turner legged out an infield single — third baseman Braden Shewmake had minor hitch in the transfer, and might have been playing a step or so too deep, as well — and Crochet walked Harper before Bohm’s opposite field homer.
Chris Flexen, pushed out of the rotation by Nastrini’s arrival, had his best outing with four innings of one-hit, scoreless relief. Flexen struck out four and allowed no walks.