Boston Red Sox pitcher Kutter Crawford didn’t look like himself on the mound against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday night.
The right-hander gave up home runs to five different batters: Freddie Freeman, Austin Barnes, Teoscar Hernández, Shohei Ohtani and Gavin Lux. By the time Crawford exited the game through five innings of work, the Dodgers were leading the Red Sox 6-2.
The Red Sox started the game on the right foot, bringing in two runs in the first inning from a Jarren Duran homer. The lead, though, didn’t last long after Crawford gave up two runs in the same inning.
“That’s the worst feeling you can have as a pitcher,” Crawford told reporters, per MassLive’s Chris Cotillo. “Your offense does everything it can to get us some runs and my job is to go out there and put up zeroes. Me giving two right back, it’s not a good feeling.”
Allowing five home runs was a career high for the 28-year-old and it was just the 10th time in Boston history that it happened. Crawford entered the game with a 0.45 ERA in the month of July and exited with a 2.52 ERA.
The Red Sox went on to put six runs, but the deficit was too much to bounce back from.
Despite taking a three-game sweep at the hands of the Dodgers, the pitcher believes his team played well coming off the All-Star break.
“We competed,” Crawford said. “Just a couple swings changed the outlook of the game. I don’t think we played bad as a team. Coming off the break, we’re out here in L.A. I don’t think we played a bad series. Obviously, my outing today didn’t help at all.”
