BOSTON -- He’s been good for nearly two months but Melky Cabrera is on another level right now.
The White Sox left field has a .475/.476/.875 slash line with eight doubles, a triple, two home runs and 13 RBIs in the past nine games. Cabrera, who is 19-for-40 in the stretch, is the first White Sox hitter since Magglio Ordonez in 2003 to have seven consecutive multi-hit games. He is the only player in franchise history to have seven straight multi-hit games and drive in a run in each.
While Jose Abreu gets the attention, Cabrera recently has been the driving force behind an offense that has outscored its opponents 54-19 during a seven-game winning streak.
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“Don’t touch that guy, he will burn you,” White Sox leadoff man Adam Eaton said. “He’s extremely hot right now. We talk about approach and coming to the ballpark ready to play every day, he’s done that. His tenacity in how he goes about his business, it pays off. He’s a true professional at the plate and goes up with a great approach and all of a sudden it starts going his way. Shows how good of a hitter he is.”
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Off to a slow start, Cabrera has been on fire since June 8 and continued it with three more hits in six at-bats and an RBI on Wednesday. He entered Wednesday’s victory with a .354/.392/.573 and 24 extra-base hits in his last 181 plate appearances. Cabrera credited manager Robin Ventura’s steady approach for allowing the White Sox to rebound from an awful start.
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But Ventura insists that all credit goes to Cabrera, who is in the first season of a three-year, $42-million deal.
“He’s hitting everything hard,” Ventura said. “Anything in the zone he’s taking pretty good hacks at and he’s always in the middle of everything we’re doing and hitting stuff hard.”