Before the game even began, Brandon Hyde relived his last experience with Garrett Crochet on the mound for the opposing team. He sat in the interview room and rattled off what he remembered — a pitcher’s duel between Kyle Bradish and Crochet, when the latter was still with the Chicago White Sox.

It was frigid that day on the South Side but Crochet and Bradish were red hot. Bradish finished seven no-hit innings, and barring Adley Rutschman’s two-run homer, the Orioles didn’t do much against Crochet, either. They both racked up 11 strikeouts.

“I’m right on that, right? That’s all memory. Is that good?” Hyde said, recounting those details. “But yeah, it’s like the [Chris] Sale angle but more physical. He’s getting paid. It’s upper-90s fastball and we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

The Orioles sure did on Wednesday night.

Crochet, in his first appearance since signing his contract extension with the Boston Red Sox, will leave Hyde with more bad memories of the southpaw at his best. The Red Sox star outdueled right-hander Zach Eflin, although on most nights, the performance from Baltimore’s staff leader would’ve been more than good enough for its high-octane offense.

Not on this night, though. Not with Crochet on the mound. The No. 1 starter, whom Boston acquired via trade this offseason to lead their rotation, tore through Baltimore’s lineup and set the Red Sox on their way to a 3-0 win at Camden Yards in the second game of the series.

“It’s pretty similar to what we saw last year in Chicago,” Hyde said after the loss. “We didn’t have a whole much offense that afternoon there. Just tip your hat. That’s outstanding stuff — four pitches he throws for strikes with tempo, plus stuff, crossfire, physical. It’s a tough at-bat."

There will long be an asterisk hanging over Crochet because of his limited experience as a starting pitcher. He converted from relief and became an All-Star last year by making 32 starts. But even with all those outings, the left-hander completed just 146 innings, limited due to a 2022 Tommy John elbow reconstruction surgery.

The 6-foot-6 fireballer is far enough removed now, however, to complete eight innings Wednesday. Crochet allowed four hits and one walk with zero runs against him. And while Eflin limited damage, the first hit of Rafael Devers’ season and the first home run over the new left-field wall dimensions helped sink the Orioles.

Just like that outing last year in Chicago, when eyes watched the pitching matchup closely, Crochet and Eflin offered a fascinating duo.

But in the same breath, it’s easy to understand the value of an ace. The Orioles understood it with Corbin Burnes last year, and the Red Sox have the benefit of Crochet this year and into the future.

For as strong as Eflin has been — with a 2.60 ERA last year after arriving in a trade — Crochet’s ceiling is higher. The 25-year-old induced 14 whiffs, burying his cutter below the hands of right-handed batters throughout the contest.

In the sixth inning, Rutschman and Tyler O’Neill lofted deep fly balls against Crochet. On a warmer summer night, perhaps those would’ve sailed out of the yard. Instead, the two deep flies landed near the warning track and were the closest Baltimore came to scoring, apart from a two-on, two-out situation in the second that ended with a weak force out.

The Orioles stacked the lineup with right-handed hitters and it still didn’t help. The cutter, which drew called strikes or whiffs 47% of the time Crochet threw it, was an antidote to the opposite-handed hitters.

“His cutter, which is like a slider — it’s a little turbo there that he has — just got to find a way to lay off those things,“ said outfielder Ramón Laureano, who notched his first hit and first outfield assist as an Oriole. ”That’s what he showed, with eight righties in the lineup. You got to tip your cap to him.”

But Crochet leaned on his four-seam fastball even more than the cutter. After a cutter-heavy start in his first appearance of the season, he said “it really didn’t matter who I was facing today, I wanted to get back to throwing a lot more four-seams. I was able to get ahead with it.” He threw first-pitch strikes to 18 of the 27 batters he faced.

The contact off Eflin led to more damage. In the second, Trevor Story lofted a 394-foot solo homer that may not have cleared the deeper and taller left-field wall last year (398 feet at its deepest point).

“He gives us a chance to win every time out,” Hyde said of Eflin, who recorded his career-best 12th straight start with three runs or fewer against him. “Just kind of that one pitch to Story got a little bit too much of the plate.”

In the fifth, Ceddanne Rafaela drove in newly extended Kristian Campbell with a single. Then Devers broke an 0-for-21 streak to begin the season by lashing an RBI double to right field, which scored Rafaela from first.

That was enough of a lead for the Red Sox to hold with ease, evening the series before Thursday’s rubber match.

After a leadoff single from Ramón Urías in the eighth, the Red Sox bullpen began to loosen. But manager Alex Cora stuck with his guy, waiting to see if Crochet could finish the frame on his own. A lineout and double play led to Crochet’s yell and fist pump as he left the mound with 102 pitches under his belt.

It was the kind of performance an ace makes. And the Orioles had another front-row seat to watch him work.

“We play 162 games and they’re not all going to go in our favor,” Eflin said. “He pitched really well tonight, and they put some good swings on that scored enough runs to win the game.”