Previous work has shown that the stiffness of poly(lactide)-b-poly(ethylene oxide)-b-poly(lactide) [PLA−PEO−PLA] hydrogels can be influenced by crystallinity. Those hydrogels with crystalline PLLA end blocks had a higher storage modulus (up to 1 order of magnitude) than the amorphous equivalents. All the previous work was done with polymers synthesized in the bulk. This paper reports the difference in mechanical properties when two different synthetic techniques are usedbulk and solution synthesis. Solution-synthesized polymers consistently formed stiffer hydrogels than bulk-synthesized polymers. Further investigation determined the following: crystalline polymers from solution synthesis still form stiffer gels than the amorphous analogues, but not to the extent previously reported; the solution synthesized polymers have narrower distributions, but this alone does not account for the mechanical differences. However, the presence of asymmetric triblock copolymers, which act like an effective diblock copol...