The Boston Red Sox are after the AL East lead, and Garrett Crochet helped them to their seventh straight win on Tuesday. Crochet pitched seven strong innings against the Kansas City Royals, allowing only two earned runs on four hits and one walk while striking out eight.After the 6-2 win, Crochet's wife, Rachel, reposted a moment from the game when Crochet retired the final batter in the seventh inning, leaving him full of emotions and pumped up. She attached a one-word reaction to describe the moment:"Him."Rachel's Instagram storyCrochet had nine days of rest coming into the game. He registered 105 pitches on the night, with the final one being a 96.7 mph fastball against Luke Maile. With the win, Crochet leads the American League in wins (13), innings (148 1/3) and strikeouts (183) and ranks third in ERA (2.24).Red Sox manager shares thoughts on tight seventh inning as he lauds Garrett CrochetGarrett Crochet came out to the mound for the seventh inning and immediately walked Maikel Garcia. An out later, he gave up a double to Randal Grichuk, on which Garcia scored and cut the Red Sox's lead to 3-2. With a man on second, Crochet delivered by punching back-to-back strikeouts to escape in the seventh inning.After the game, reporters asked manager Alex Cora on whether he thought of removing Crochet from the gme when things got tight in the seventh inning. Cora replied in the negative:"Yeah, I mean, I think the fans kind of like understood where we were, right? And they stood up and the two strike clap, you know, and they got very loud, and I mean, shoot, think about his season last year, you know, as a team and and for him, right? "He was kind of like up and down and in his limit and all that stuff, and now this is what he wanted to do. Just pitch. And we're going to let him do that."Cora also said that it was the last time Garrett Crochet will skip a start unless there are any injury concerns. Crochet is one of the leading Cy Young candidates in the American League.