Red Sox Slugger Finally Snaps 20-Game Home Run Drought originally appeared on NESN. Add NESN as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Early in the season, when the entire Boston Red Sox lineup was asleep, Wilyer Abreu was not.
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The World Baseball Classic champion smashed three home runs in the first six games of the season. His OPS jumped above 1.000 and stayed there halfway through April.
Abreu maintained a team-high batting average as the season waged on, but his power was never really there. He has hit just six home runs this year after hitting 22 home runs in just 115 games last season.
Moreover, the starting right fielder was in the throes of a 20-game home run drought going into Game 2 of the Red Sox’s home series against the Baltimore Orioles.
The last time Abreu went deep was all the way back on May 8 when Boston hosted the Tampa Bay Rays, and he raked a 427-foot home run to the deepest part of Fenway Park.
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Abreu started the game on Wednesday night with an RBI single in the first inning that scored Jarren Duran and gave Boston the lead.
He stepped into the batter’s box in the third inning with a runner in scoring position once again. He went down in the count 1-2 before battling it back full and fouling off a pair of offspeed pitches.
Abreu got the foot down early on the eighth pitch of the at-bat and roped a high fastball down the right field line. He blasted it sky high, over Pesky’s Pole and into the right field bleachers for his first home run in nearly one full calendar month.
