Brandon Brown
Boston Red Sox right-hander Kutter Crawford continued his fantastic start to the season on Wednesday night, holding the San Francisco Giants to two runs in seven innings as part of a 6-2 victory (box score). Crawford, who entered the night ranked first in the American League in ERA among qualified starters, has already matched his single-season career high in quality starts with four. (For reference: He entered the season with eight tallies in his first 36 big league starts.)
Crawford has been a balm for an injury-ravaged Red Sox rotation. To wit, Boston is currently without Lucas Giolito, Brayan Bello, Nick Pivetta and Garrett Whitlock – or three members of its Opening Day rotation and Giolito, who would have moved up to fourth if he hadn’t needed elbow surgery late in the season. season during spring training.
How do you explain Crawford’s big stretch — which could land him on the American League All-Star team if he keeps it up? After all, this is someone who had a modest career 94 ERA+ entering the year. Scroll slowly with us as we highlight some tweaks he’s made to his arsenal that help explain his improved performance.
1. Refined cutter is more prominent
We must admit it’s a bit extreme for a pitcher named Kutter to fall in love with his cutter, but what can you do? Score one point for nominative determinism. As of Wednesday’s start, Crawford’s cutter has been his most utilized pitch this season. He is playing 32.8% of the time, which is a career high rate.
The most notable development here is that Crawford has greatly reduced his fastball usage. In previous seasons, he always abandoned his four-seam boat at least 35% of the time. This year, it fell to 29.3%. This move fits into the Red Sox’ biggest philosophical shift under new pitching coach Andrew Bailey. As our Mike Axisa explained in early April:
The Red Sox went from a comfortably above-average fastball rate last season to a comfortably below-average fastball rate this season. And again, the personnel hasn’t changed much. Only about 90% of the innings pitched on the West Coast trip were pitched by pitchers who were with the Red Sox in 2023. It’s a pitching change, not a pitcher change.
Crawford may have also adjusted his cutter. According to TruMedia data — and remember, sometimes pitch ratings are an imperfect science — this year’s cutter features more rise and run than previous editions. In turn, Crawford’s cutter is generating some of the best scores of his career:
|
2022 |
0.282 |
0.427 |
|
2023 |
0.295 |
0.439 |
|
2024 |
.178 |
0.200 |
Crawford’s cutter isn’t his only notable change.
2. Sweeper creates interaction
The other change Crawford made that we’d like to highlight is the implementation of a comprehensive slider. Crawford began using the field last season, but it has been given new life in his 2024 matches.
To put things into perspective, Crawford threw his sweeper 140 times last year. As of Wednesday night, he has played 152 times this year. Here’s a look at the results:
|
2023 |
6.6% |
.154 |
36.5% |
35.7% |
|
2024 |
24.1% |
0.233 |
27.7% |
48% |
As you can see, Crawford’s sweeper isn’t generating whiffs or avoiding hits as well as he did during his cameo appearance last season. This is perhaps to be expected given that hitters are seeing the pitch much more often and therefore need to game plan to get in.
It’s worth noting that Crawford has been throwing the pitch in the zone more and more frequently. This may not mean much in itself, but the pitch is largely about the interaction between offers. It’s at least worth asking if Crawford’s new ability to locate his sweeper in the strike zone has helped his cutter.
Whatever the exact reason behind Crawford’s steps, one thing is clear: he is a well-suited pitcher to lead the Red Sox rotation, as both should be described as surprises heading into the season.
