Career Day
We've had five Worst Losses of the Year and it's not even tax day
There's no proper lede here because I couldn't bear to keep game notes up after the first inning. But hey, we won this game, 6 to 2! If you don't count the first two innings! And I did watch it until the bitter end, if somewhat half-heartedly and quarter-minded.
So there are all kinds of Bad Losses, and it's arguable whether losing leads late, or twice in a game, as has happened to this club multiple times this year are worse than being blown out. But being down 11-0 is pretty bad, and I'd argue it's the worst loss of the year not so much for the blowout but for this having been ceded by our ace, who is being paid $611 a year or something like that.
I happened to be at Greg Maddux' worst loss of his career, where he gave up nine runs in only two on way to something like a 17-1 loss for the Atlanta team. It was helped along, the internet tells me, by two unearned runs, and Crochet only gave up one unearned yesterday in the shaky but not disastrous first (yet another throwing error by Trevor Story, itself a cause for concern). It was the awful second inning, wherein Garrett couldn't even get out of the inning, that was the cause for concern.
How do you manage to be left in to give up 11 runs? Well, as my spouse hopefully points out, that's a privilege only true aces are afforded. Your typical rookie getting bombed early gets a far earlier hook. You have to be a pitcher of Crochet's -- or Maddux' -- caliber to be able to give up that many runs that early. Is that a silver lining? No it is not.
What happened? His velocity was way TF down, that's what happened. And why was it down? Here's the NESN analysis:
Crochet is coming off a 107-pitch outing, his longest of the season, and more pitches than he planned to throw in his third turn through the rotation. Last season, he threw 102 pitches in his second start of the season and saw his velocity fall in his third start before returning to normal.
So: let's recall that definition of insanity. It's still April, and we're throwing our guy out there for 107 pitches and then not giving him any extra rest. This is on the club at least 50% here for not managing their prize pig: and for once I am going to blame the brain trust here, Andrew Bailey and Alex Cora. They have access to far better analytics than the pitch count, to be sure, but PC is a pretty good indicator of workload and stress. Three walks, two homers, zero strikeouts, 55 pitches, 30 for strikes. Five extra base hits. Twice as many earned runs as outs recorded.
So, yes, this is the worst outing of Crochet's career and it's likely it will forever be so (knock on wood).
I will peer hard for silver linings: first off, the boys came back and scored three runs right away. It was early yet and that's the way comebacks happen. As it was they ended up losing by "only" seven runs, which (does math) means they outscored the Twins 6-2 after the second inning. The two runs given up were solo shots yielded by Ryan Watson, who is already eating innings for us admirably. Tyler Samaniego pitched two perfect innings, and Moran gave up only two walks in two and a third and no hits. Duran hit his first homer of the year and looked good doing it (although he looks good doing nearly everything). Roman got on three times, Durbin finally had a multihit game, 7 of 9 starters got hits, we got on base 14 times. In short everybody was doing their job except Crochet (and arguably, Trevor Story).
Bad news courtesy "Fan"graphs
So was it really the Worst Loss of the Year (the fifth such game, by my designation?) $&!# YES. You come off a series win and are on the verge of a winning streak against a team that can't hit lefties, and your ace gives up this $#@*? WORST LOSS OF THE YEAR.
Takeaways: Garrett Crochet has what will likely be the worst loss of his career. It is inexplicable how flat he pitched. The offense wasn't bad in defeat, but the game was over by the top of the third. Duran got his first home of the year and the bullpen was decent, with only Ryan Watson giving up a couple of runs and otherwise pitching 5 2/3 scoreless. Are these silver linings? No they are not. There are no silver linings in a bad loss to your ace like this, in last place, after finally showing some verve in the last week.
