Garrett Crochet’s long-awaited Fenway Park debut will have to wait an extra day.
After Saturday’s rainout forced a Sunday doubleheader, manager Alex Cora announced that Richard Fitts, who was scheduled to start Saturday, will start the series opener against the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday night. (This year, the Red Sox are playing earlier home games Mondays through Thursdays in April, May, and September, moving from the usual 7:10 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. ET.)
Crochet will go against the Jays on Tuesday, instead. He’s coming off a dominant performance in Baltimore, where he shut out the Orioles for eight innings in a 3-0 Red Sox win.
The Red Sox are currently in the home stretch of a grueling start to the season: 20 games in 21 days, with only one day off (not including Saturday’s rainout). Starting May 15, however, they all but two Thursdays off until Aug. 14. Cora believes this will benefit the team, especially in easing young players like Kristian Campbell into the rigors of the major league schedule. The minor-league schedule gives teams every Monday off.
“We got to be careful with KC,” Cora said. “The workload is a lot different than in the minor leagues.”
“It benefits everybody, especially the rotation,” the Sox skipper continued. “We’re gonna be very disciplined with that. … If we have to make adjustments we will, but I think the schedule is conducive to that. And the fact that it’s Thursday, it helps more, in my opinion, because then you have the Friday night, the Saturday afternoon, Sunday one o’clock game, so you’re going fresh into the weekend.”
