It was the first time in 24 starts this year that he failed to finish five frames.
Crochet's outing was split in half. In the first two innings, the Astros went 1 for 7 with four strikeouts. In the next two, they went 6 for 12 with a home run, three doubles, a walk, and just one strikeout.
The Sox led by two when Houston struck back for three runs in the third inning. The big blow was Christian Walker's booming, go-ahead, two-out, two-run double to left-center field.
In the fourth, Chas McCormick banged a two-run homer off the back wall beyond the Crawford Boxes in left field.
Crochet's five runs allowed matched his total from his previous 30 innings (spanning five outings).
The Red Sox (65-55) have lost three consecutive games for the first time since late June, when they dropped six in a row (at a time when they were finding themselves following the Rafael Devers trade).
Down by five entering the seventh inning, the Red Sox rallied for four to cut the deficit to one. Roman Anthony hit a two-run home run to punctuate that rally.
Anthony came up short, however, in the ninth. With the would-be tying run on second base, he struck out swinging against Bennett Sousa to end the game.
Astros righthander Cristian Javier was largely effective, holding the Sox to two runs in five innings in his first start in nearly 15 months. The long layoff was the result of an elbow injury and Tommy John surgery last season.
The Red Sox started off with a bang. Roman Anthony hammered Javier's first pitch to left-center field for a single. Former Astros star Alex Bregman -- moments after tipping his cap to a round of applause from adoring Houston fans -- hit a home run to left.
Four pitches into the game, the Sox led by a pair. Then they went 1 for 15 the rest of Javier's outing. Their only other hit was Jarren Duran's two-out single in the third.
Bregman's long ball was a storybook moment of sorts in his first game back in Houston after leaving the Astros for the Red Sox via free agency last offseason. The club honored him with a tribute video before the game, and the Daikin Park crowd followed suit with a standing ovation.
When Bregman stepped to the plate for his second at-bat, the crowd booed, seemingly in good fun.
"It's a lot of mixed feelings when you get to come back [as an opponent] for the first time," Carlos Correa said prior to his first game in Houston since the Twins traded him back to the Astros at the trade deadline. "You build a lot of great relationships in the clubhouse and in the city. Everywhere you go, it's a baseball town, so everybody knows their players here and they take care of them. So [Bregman is] going to have a lot of mixed feelings, but he's very composed and he's very professional, so he will handle it in the best way."