Wilyer Abreu belts 20th home run in win

The Red Sox had just one run on the board through five innings before Abreu broke a tie game with a two-run double in the sixth, his 36th double of the season. The 27-year-old outfielder is hitting .257/.337/.467 with 24 homers, 79 runs scored, 74 RBI, and eight steals across 632 plate appearances.

Abreu doubled in the fifth inning off Royals starter Seth Lugo to bring home Adley Rutschman, cutting the Royals’ lead to 3-2. Abreu has now hit safely in three straight games and is slashing .303/.395/.515 in September with five extra-base hits.

Abreu singled off of Logan Webb in the third inning and rode home on a three-run blast by Willson Contreras. He then capped off the Red Sox’ scoring with an RBI triple in the sixth inning. The 27-year-old outfielder is having a very productive season in the middle of the Red Sox’ lineup, slashing .262/.341/.474 with 22 homers and 68 RBI in 545 plate appearances.

Abreu’s home run was his 22nd of the season. He hit a solo shot off Jared Jones in the second inning. Abreu now has seven home runs in his last 15 games. He’s hitting .259 with an .811 OPS and 65 RBI on the season.

Abreu was a late scratch from Saturday’s lineup due to a leg contusion that he sustained when fouling a pitch off of his shin during Friday’s game. He’s serving as the designated hitter and will bat third against Athletics’ right-hander JT Ginn on Sunday afternoon at Fenway Park.

Abreu receives some extra time off to recover after being hit by a pitch above his shin guard during Friday’s game. It was a bit surprising to see him on the initial lineup card in the first place with rookie left-hander Gage Jump taking the ball for the Athletics. The 27-year-old has put together a phenomenal season, slashing .256/.331/.462 with 20 homers, 62 RBI and seven steals in 429 plate appearances over 113 games. It’ll be Eli White moving over to right field with Jarren Duran getting into the lineup in the opposite corner. Fantasy managers should consider him day-to-day for now.

Abreu missed a homer to Fenway’s short fence in right field by about two or three feet, settling for a two-RBI double. He was replaced by Eli White in the sixth inning as a defensive sub, but the game was already out of hand at that point so we don’t suspect anything bad happened here. Abreu is red-hot, hitting .385/.485/.885 with four homers and a stolen base in his last seven games. Ride the wave if you have him in fantasy baseball.

Abreu has eight homers and three two-homer games in 18 games since the break, even though he’s batting just .200 during the span (14-for-70). He’s three homers away from matching last year’s total, which seems good, but then he’s already had 71 more plate appearances than he did then, since he’s avoided the IL and he’s starting regularly against lefties.

Both homers were two-run shots off lefties. The first helped knock Ian Seymour out of the game after three. The second came after the Rays inserted Garrett Cleavinger to face him in the seventh. That homer made it a 7-6 game and concluded the scoring for the day. Abreu had four two-homer games last season, but he was without one this year until the second game of Friday’s doubleheader. He has 15 homers on the year, and he ended the game with an .800 OPS for the first time since May 24. The win was Boston’s 12th straight, and the Red Sox are now back over .500 for the first time since winning on Opening Day.

Abreu went deep off of Rays starter Mason Englert in the bottom of the first inning to tie the game at 2-2. Abreu would take Englert deep again in the third inning to give the Red Sox a 4-3 lead after the Rays had briefly tied the game, pushing his home run total to 13 on the season. He’s hitting on .234 in the month of July, but Abreu is enjoying a bit of a power surge, as seven of his 11 hits on the month have gone for extra bases.