BOSTON — Garrett Crochet didn’t quite flirt with a no-hitter in this weekend’s rematch with the Chicago White Sox at Fenway Park, but with each passing start the Red Sox ace continues to prove he’s the guy.

Yet great as he was on Saturday, the left-hander still wound up needing a little help.

Crochet threw six shutout innings for the Red Sox in his latest gem, and after the White Sox rallied against the bullpen to force extra innings, Triston Casas wound up delivering a walk-off RBI double off the Green Monster to give Boston the 4-3 win in 10 innings.

“He’s been actually swinging the bat well, more aggressive with more conviction,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said of Casas, who came into the game batting .172 on the season. “He did a good job of staying with the pitch and we got the W.”

Acquired from the White Sox in a blockbuster offseason trade, Crochet broke out as one of baseball’s top young arms last season and was brought in to be the type of clear-cut ace the Red Sox have lacked in recent years. He signed a six-year, $170 million deal shortly after Opening Day, and while he’s only about a month into his Red Sox career, the early returns have been promising.

With Saturday’s start Crochet is now one of nine players in Red Sox history who has begun his career with the franchise with five starts of at least five innings and four earned runs or fewer allowed total. The last was Michael Wacha in 2022, and the others all came in 1945 or earlier.

Crochet boasts a 1.13 ERA with 35 strikeouts over 32 innings pitched. Saturday he struck out seven, drew 17 whiffs and held the White Sox to four hits and two walks spread out across his outing, yet following the game both he and Cora said Saturday was still subpar by his standards.

“The stuff was good, but erratic,” Cora said. “Some deep counts, some two-strike hits, but on a night where he was OK, that’s what we get.”

“It feels good but I feel like I’m getting away with murder and it’s only a matter of time until I get caught,” Crochet said. “I feel like the way I’m throwing the ball isn’t up to my par, it’s only a matter of time before I get burned and I’d just rather avoid that at all costs.”

Crochet didn’t give the White Sox any room to breathe, but for the second straight outing White Sox right-hander Shane Smith was able to hang tough.

The Danvers native, pitching at Fenway Park for the first time as a big leaguer, shut out the Red Sox through the first four innings. The former Governor’s Academy star hit three batters and walked one, but he didn’t surrender his first hit until the bottom of the fourth, a harmless single that didn’t lead to any further damage.

But eventually the Red Sox got the bats going, with Ceddanne Rafaela hitting a double, Jarren Duran a single and Rafael Devers a massive three-run home run the opposite way over the Green Monster in the bottom of the fifth.

Smith wound up allowing the three runs over 4 2/3 innings with four hits and three strikeouts in his first outing at his childhood ballpark. Jared Shuster, a New Bedford native and a former college teammate of Smith’s at Wake Forest, followed out of the bullpen and held the Red Sox scoreless over 1 1/3 innings in his first appearance at Fenway.

“He’s a good pitcher, he’s got good stuff, he’s going to be a good pitcher for a long, long time,” Cora said of Smith. “We saw it last week, we saw it today, it just happened that we had our guy on the mound, too.”

What was shaping up to be a sleepy Red Sox victory took a turn in the seventh when a defensive miscue wound up coming back to bite Boston. Greg Weissert, who entered the day having allowed just two earned runs through his first nine appearances, wasn’t sharp but should have escaped the inning without incident after appearing to draw an inning-ending double play. But Trevor Story couldn’t handle Casas’ throw to second, and the misplay led to an RBI single by Chase Meidroth and a two-run home run by Luis Robert Jr. that tied the game at 3-3.

Former Red Sox left-hander Cam Booser, who was honored as the 2024 Tony Conigliaro Award winner prior to the game, pitched a scoreless seventh, and Justin Slaten came on in the eighth for Boston and retired all three batters he faced. Since allowing a leadoff single in the seventh inning of Boston’s April 3 win over Baltimore, Slaten has now retired 18 straight batters over his last six appearances.

Then Aroldis Chapman came on with the game tied and worked around a leadoff double to pitch a scoreless ninth. In the process the closer had six pitches measured at over 100 mph, including a first-pitch fastball to Meidroth that clocked 102.3 mph.

According to the team, that’s the fastest pitch by a Red Sox pitcher in the Statcast era, and possibly in club history.

The Red Sox had a prime opportunity to win it in the ninth when Carlos Narvaez led off the inning with a loud line drive high off the Green Monster. Narvaez should have been held to a single, but the White Sox wound up throwing the ball away trying to catch him off the bag at first.

That put pinch runner David Hamilton at second with no outs, but the White Sox recovered by throwing Hamilton out at third on Rafaela’s subsequent infield chopper. Boston got the winning run in scoring position again anyway when Rafaela advanced on a wild pitch, but White Sox reliever Jordan Leasure struck out Alex Bregman to send the game to extras.

Garrett Whitlock held the White Sox scoreless in the 10th thanks to two strikeouts and an impressive running catch by Wilyer Abreu in right field to end the inning. That set the table for the big finish, with Kristian Campbell drawing a walk to load the bases against former BC High standout Mike Vasil in the bottom of the 10th before Casas provided the walk-off exclamation point.

Boston (12-10) has now three walk-off wins and will go into Sunday’s game riding a four-game winning streak. Tanner Houck is slated to take the mound against former St. John’s of Shrewsbury star Sean Burke.

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