Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet carves up Royals lineup while offense erupts for 6 runs to win seventh straight game

The Red Sox had preplanned the idea of skipping Garrett Crochet’s start to keep him fresh down the stretch, which paid off on Tuesday night.

After a nine-day layoff, the Sox’ ace carved up the Royals lineup early on in the game, before running into a smidge of trouble, tossing seven strong innings, and allowing two earned runs off four hits with one walk and eight strikeouts in front of a packed house of 37,013 fans at Fenway Park.

The Royals finally managed to score in the fourth inning when Crochet (13-4) gave up a two-out triple to Bobby Witt Jr., who later scored on an RBI double from Maikel Garcia.

In the fifth inning, David Hamilton and Wilyer Abreu made a pair of great plays, flashing their leather. Hamilton made a rolling stab to prevent a grounder by Randal Grichuk from reaching the outfield, throwing him out at first. Nick Loftin hit a 95.9 mph, 315-foot line drive into the right-field corner, but a sprinting Abreu made a stunning catch, crashing into the wall, making a play near the Pesky Pole.

“That was unreal. I thought I got Pesky’d early on,” Crochet said.

After Abreu crashed into the wall, the fans in the corner were going wild, sending electricity throughout the entire ballpark.

“Our fans, they’re the best,” Abreu said. “Especially now that we’re playing well and things are going good for us. Just to see how much they’re yelling and to see how loud they are getting, it’s been really fun.”

That wasn’t the only outstanding catch Abreu made in the game. In the seventh inning, Abreu successfully caught a fly ball from Salvador Perez up against the wall.

“Then, the Salvy one as well,” Crochet said. “He plays an incredible right field, and this isn’t the easiest park to do it at. The entire outfield—it’s pretty legit. I think that it’s probably the best rounded outfield, including all three of them, in the league. It’s really special.”

Abreu recorded two hits, including adding two RBI, helping the Red Sox defeat the Royals, 6-2, winning their seventh straight game and ninth in their last 10 games.

Boston fans have been treated to outstanding defense from Abreu since he became the club’s full-time right fielder last season. Abreu won a Gold Glove last year, recording 17 defensive runs saved in 921 1/3 frames. He’s making a case for more hardware this winter; entering play on Tuesday night, he has 13 defensive runs saved in 710 1/3 innings in right field this year.

“Just a good athlete,” Alex Cora said. “In the eighth inning, there was a ball in right-center that he went after, and you see Ceddanne (Rafaela) flying to the gap, too.”

According to Statcast, Abreu is in the 95th percentile in outs above average (7), 97th percentile in arm strength (94.2), and 88th percentile in fielding run value (6) this season.

“Very tough play,” Abreu said through translator Daveson Perez. “There’s some wide dimensions here in this ballpark. So it’s very important to keep your focus when you’re out there and making plays like that.”

Crochet kept rolling heading into the seventh inning but allowed an RBI double to Grichuk and then fell behind Loftin but fought back to strike him out. With one on and two out and his pitch count over 100, the southpaw faced Royals catcher Luke Maile. The sold-out crowd watched Crochet strike him out on four pitches.

“It felt really good,” said Crochet. “(Maile) battled pretty hard the at-bat prior, and then I kind of gave in and had to throw a cutter in the zone and left it out over. So for that at-bat I felt like I was fairly in control. And I just didn’t want to give up the lead again. I’d already given up one that inning, so I shortened the lead pretty quickly. But for me it was; I just wanted that strikeout pretty bad.

“It’s a fun atmosphere right now,” the left-hander added. “I can only imagine what it’s going to be in a couple of months… Winning, just in the clubhouse, it’s very contagious. I think in our city right now, it’s very contagious.”

Crochet has been dialed in since June 1, going 9-0 with a 2.45 ERA and 94 strikeouts in 11 starts. The Sox have won 10 of those games. The lefty now leads the MLB with 183 strikeouts, wins (13), and innings pitched (148 1/3), which is a career high, surpassing the 146 last season, and ranks third in ERA (2.24).

Boston’s offense started off slow, thanks to new Royals righty Ryan Bergert, who held the Sox in check. He went 5 2/3 innings, allowing just two hits and two earned runs with two walks and two strikeouts.

In the sixth inning, the Red Sox finally chased the new Royals’ righty; with the game tied 1-1, Alex Bregman helped set up a rally that gave the Sox the lead for good. Kansas City turned to the bullpen and brought in left-hander Angel Zerpa to face Abreu. The left-handed hitter won the battle, lacing an opposite-field double, and then Trevor Story dropped a bloop hit into center field, scoring two runs, putting the Red Sox up for good.

“Put the ball in play—that matters," Cora said to reporters after the game. “It doesn’t matter how hard you hit it, but put it in play. If you swing and miss, you don’t have a chance. He’s made some adjustments; you’ve got to credit him.”

Former Red Sox reliever John Schreiber hit a wall in the seventh inning, walking Hamilton, giving up a single to Duran, and walking Bregman before Abreu delivered a big hit, with a two-run single into right field.

Abreu has knocked in a run in six straight games, which is tied for the second-longest streak of his career.

Story added his third RBI of the game with a hard single that made it 6-2.

Story has 72 RBI on the season and has a real shot to crack 100 with 47 games to go. The last time he drove 100 RBI was in 2018, when he drove 108 for the Rockies. Over the last seven games, Story has driven in 11 RBI and has been hitting .480 with a 1.552 OPS since July 29. Tuesday night was the 12th game this season where he’s recorded three or more RBI in a game, which is tied for the second-most in baseball with the Cubs Seiya Suzuki and two behind new Mariners slugger Eugenio Suárez (14).

The Royals failed to mount a late-inning rally; Greg Weissert and Jordan Hicks each pitched an inning to shut down Kansas City and secure the series win.

Boston will look to sweep the Royals on Wednesday night and will turn the ball over to Dustin May (6-7, 4.85 ERA). He will make his Red Sox’ debut, pitching for the first time since last Sunday when he faced Boston as a member of the Dodgers. The Royals will counter with former Red Sox righty Michael Wacha (5-9, 3.38 ERA). The first pitch will be at 7:10 p.m. and can be seen on NESN.