Trevor Story, Connelly Early lead Red Sox past Twins 9-5; Garrett Crochet and key series takeaways

The Red Sox salvaged their second road trip of the season with a commanding 9-5 win over the Twins on Wednesday afternoon at Target Field.

Boston also picked up its first win of the year when trailing, improving to 1-7 in games in which the opponent scores first. As has been the case all season, the offense remains a rollercoaster, leaving fans unsure what they’ll get on any given day.

Alex Cora rolled out yet another new lineup, resting slugger Willson Contreras due to low back tightness that surfaced Tuesday night. Caleb Durbin and Wilyer Abreu were also given scheduled days off, leading to Ceddanne Rafaela hitting second, Andruw Monasterio starting at first base, and Roman Anthony in right field.

The reshuffled lineup delivered, as the Red Sox scored nine runs with Trevor Story continuing to look like a force at the plate.

Beyond the offensive production, Connelly Early was outstanding. The young left-hander provided a much-needed bounce-back performance after Garrett Crochet and Sonny Gray struggled in the first two games of the series.

After allowing a solo homer to Austin Martin in the first inning, the left-hander settled in and delivered his best start of the season. Early allowed just that one run on two hits, with two walks and five strikeouts. Through four starts, he owns a 2.29 ERA over 19 2/3 innings. It also marked the first time this season he worked beyond the fifth inning.

“Coming into today, I wanted to go as deep as I could into the game. Got through six,” said Early. “It's nice to get through six innings for the first time this year.”

“He was working fast, efficient,” Story said. “He was attacking. He set the tone. He gave up the one homer, but it didn’t faze him at all, and right back on the attack. So that’s the kind of pitching you love to play defense behind and keeps us on our toes and keeps us ready to make a play.”

Early continued to reinforce Cora’s philosophy of when the Red Sox pitch well, they win games.

“I’ve been saying it all along,” said Cora. “When we pitch, we’re gonna win. Great job by the offense, great job by [Early]. For him to give us that was very important.”

The Sox are 7-0 when they get a quality start and 0-11 when they don’t.

“It’s super nice to go six,” Early said. “Obviously the offense did an amazing job working their starter. I feel like that’s the name of the game, if our starter can go longer than theirs, we’re in a really good spot."

Early leaned on his four-seam fastball, throwing it 31 times and generating three swings and misses. He topped out at 96.5 mph and averaged 93.9 mph with the pitch. He also picked up two whiffs with his changeup and one each with his curveball and sweeper, according to Baseball Savant.

He wasn’t the only one who stood out Wednesday. Story had a big day at the plate, driving in five runs, his highest single-game total since June 2025.

Story capped a five-run third inning with a 411-foot, three-run homer to left-center off Twins starter Simeon Woods Richardson, his second of the season. He added a two-run double in the sixth to extend Boston’s lead to 9-1, finishing the day with five RBI to pace the club with 17 on the year. Story also reached base three times, drawing a walk.

Boston’s rally in the third was sparked by a defensive miscue. With the bases loaded and nobody out, second baseman Luke Keaschall committed both a fielding and throwing error on Masataka Yoshida’s soft grounder, allowing two runs to score and giving the Red Sox a 2-1 lead. Story’s three-run blast followed on the very next pitch.

Monasterio went 3-for-5, highlighted by an RBI double in the fifth that extended Boston’s lead to 6-1. Story, Anthony, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa each added two hits, while Jarren Duran was the lone hitter without a knock, going 0-for-5 with three strikeouts. Boston’s offense produced nine runs despite being without key bats in Contreras and Abreu.

“It’s good for the whole team,” Contreras said. “Like I said before, it's a whole team. It's not about one guy. I'm glad that they stepped up today. Took good at-bats, took advantage of everything they could, of course the big homer for Trevor. We won today. That's what’s important.”

It got a little dicey in the ninth with Boston holding a 9-1 lead. What should have been a routine inning turned messy as Ryan Watson allowed four runs, including a three-run homer to Ryan Kreidler.

Watson ultimately worked through the damage, and the Red Sox held on to win the series finale.

“Yeah, that felt good,” Story said. “Obviously, we needed to win this one today to finish the road trip .500. I had a chance early in the game, second and third with less than two [outs], and didn't get it done. So I felt good about getting it done that second time.”

The Red Sox are off Thursday before returning to Fenway Park on Friday to begin a seven-game homestand, four against the Tigers followed by three against the Yankees. Left-hander Ranger Suárez (1-1, 5.02 ERA) is set to start Friday night’s opener against Detroit at 7:15 p.m. The Tigers have yet to announce a starter.

Additional Takeaways From Series

Yoshida needs more consistent playing time.

In the series finale, Yoshida helped spark the Red Sox in the third inning, putting the ball in play and driving in two runs on a defensive miscue that should have been an inning-ending double play. It was a reminder of how his contact-first approach can shift the course of an inning.

He appeared in two of the three games in the series, going 3-for-9 with a double and an RBI, and is currently riding a five-game hitting streak dating back to April 5.

The outfield logjam makes it difficult for Cora to keep everyone in the lineup, but Boston should be prioritizing production. Getting Yoshida and his .852 OPS through 11 games (28 at-bats) more consistent at-bats is a step in the right direction.

Story has been a force for the Red Sox since Cora dropped him out of the two-hole, providing much-needed production in the middle of the lineup.

Boston, however, continues to struggle with the ABS challenge system and that falls on Cora and his staff to better educate players on when to use it.

In the sixth inning of Tuesday’s loss, Monasterio challenged a strike call on a pitch down the heart of the plate, an easy call that made for one of the worst challenges by a Red Sox hitter this season. It echoed an earlier miscue when Rafaela burned a challenge on an 0-0 pitch against the Astros.

The results back it up as Boston has won just 45% of its ABS challenges (5-for-11), the fifth-worst rate in MLB. By comparison, the Cincinnati Reds lead the league at 69% (11-for-16).

Duran also needs to produce, plain and simple. The outfielder is hitting just .170/.204/.298 with one homer through 15 games and went 1-for-14 with five strikeouts in the series.

He also drew attention for his reaction to a fan during Tuesday’s game, flipping a middle finger after a groundout. According to Duran, the fan told him to take his own life, a deeply personal trigger given his openness about past mental health struggles.

“It’s hard. I’m not in his shoes,” Cora said. “So for me to say, ‘Don’t react that way,’ I don’t know what he goes through. So I think for people to judge him because he did what he did, they’re not in his shoes. Never been in his situation. This is a different situation than others. It’s not that you’re struggling offensively and they say something and you react. It’s something else. And it’s not for me to judge him or to say, don’t react that way. The only thing I can do is tell him that I’m here for him, that the organization is here for him, and we’re going to support him.”

Outside of that, he’s not producing at the plate, and Boston needs to get to the root of Duran’s struggles. The lineup will need his speed and ability to drive the ball into the gaps as the weather warms up.

All Eyes on Crochet

As the Red Sox return to Fenway Park to open a seven-game homestand against the Tigers and Yankees, all eyes will be on Crochet this Sunday as he looks to rebound from the worst start of his career.

Crochet’s command has been inconsistent dating back to the spring. The left-hander is coming off a career-high 205 1/3 innings and matched a career-high with 32 starts last season, and Boston is counting on him to replicate that production. The workload has been heavy and could be a factor into his sluggish start. 

Prior to Monday’s outing, Crochet threw 107 pitches against the Brewers to help snap a losing skid when the club was 2-8. In his first two starts, he logged 80 and 93 pitches, respectively. He’s proven to be a workhorse since becoming a full-time starter, but something hasn’t quite looked right.

Still, the Red Sox have downplayed any concerns about an injury.

“No. He’s healthy so that’s the most important thing,” Cora said after Crochet’s miserable outing on Monday. 

It’s unlikely Boston would send its $170 million investment to the mound if there were a serious injury concern. Still, it’s possible Crochet is dealing with something minor that hasn’t been disclosed. Given the early point in the season and his struggles with command, there’s a case to be made for managing his workload rather than pushing him past 100 pitches, preserving some mileage for later in the year.

The underlying metrics support the concern. His 13 four-seam fastballs averaged 94.9 mph, down from his 96.1 mph season average, and the spin rates across his arsenal dipped as well. His cutter, for example, averaged 2,510 rpm compared to his 2,629 season mark, according to Baseball Savant.

The contact against him was loud. Crochet allowed eight hard-hit balls (95+ mph exit velocity) on 14 balls in play, a 57.1% hard-hit rate, tied for the third-highest of any start in which he’s allowed at least 10 batted balls. He also generated called strikes plus whiffs on just 12.7% of his pitches (7 of 55), the lowest mark of his career.

Crochet has also issued more free passes, including three walks on Monday night. While the walks aren’t overly concerning, he has a track record of elevated walk rates early in the season, the hit-by-pitches stand out more. After hitting just three batters all of last year, he’s already plunked four this season. Three have come on his sinker, with the other on his cutter.

“It’s tough,” Crochet said of his outing. “I mean, I don’t really have anything to say. I’m just gonna flush it, I mean, as best I can. Move on to the next one. Yeah, they had a good approach.”

His next outing Sunday will come on six days’ rest, giving the big left-hander an extra day thanks to Thursday’s off day. Crochet has said he prefers a five-day routine, but he also acknowledged he was more effective last season with extra rest, posting a 2.27 ERA on six days compared to 3.16 on five.

Andrew Bailey, Cora, and Crochet all emphasized the need to learn from the outing and move on.

“It’s a little eye opening, obviously,” Bailey said. “I think there’s a little frustration and curiosity, but like for me, there’s a couple balls on the line, jam shot to the left, a couple walks mixed there and then obviously they were able to step on some pitches in zone and hit him out of the yard. And it happened really quickly. So just got to move past it.”