WORCESTER — A little over a year ago, Wilyer Abreu was celebrating the gender reveal for his first child on the field at Polar Park. Since then, it’s been milestone after milestone for the former WooSox outfielder.
He made his major league debut last August. A couple of days later, he hit his first MLB home run as part of a four-hit game. He came into spring training as a favorite for a starting outfield job. And now, he’s returning to Polar Park as one of the most exciting rookies in all of baseball.
His stay will be very short as he rehabs from an ankle injury; he served as the DH on Tuesday night and is scheduled to play the outfield on Wednesday. Abreu went 0-for-4 with a walk, a deep fly out to center, a ground out to first, and a couple of strikeouts in his first two at-bats.
Abreu has appeared in 53 games for the Red Sox this season and compiled a .272/.344/.485 slash line with six home runs, 22 RBIs, and seven stolen bases, plus some impressive defense.
The soon-to-be 25-year-old’s stellar season hit a snag early this month when he slipped on the dugout steps during a game on June 4 at Fenway and sprained his right ankle.
Physically, Abreu said he’s feeling “really good” and “trying to get to 100 percent” while he’s with the WooSox.
“I just want to feel confident in my ankle,” Abreu said, and joked that in two games, fans might not see “the Wilyer they saw here last year.”
Although manager Chad Tracy never wants to see anyone hurt, he said it is nice to see Abreu, who was a big personality in the clubhouse in 2023.
“It’s great. Gave him a big hug. You guys know how we love him here,” Tracy said. “He’s a great human being, incredibly hard worker and [I’m] obviously very proud of him for what he’s accomplished up there to this point. I think all of us kind of knew that he had the ability to do that ‘cause he’s a really special player.”
Abreu is one of the many former WooSox making an impact with the major-league team this year, hitting in a lineup with players like Ceddanne Rafaela, David Hamilton, and Enmanuel Valdez, all of whom he played with in Worcester as well as Boston.
“I’m happy for them to be part of the team too and enjoying and sharing the [season] with them, so it’s really good,” Abreu said.
He also talked about how special his experience playing at Fenway Park has been.
“The fans are great. They’re always screaming, they support us every evening,” Abreu said. “No matter what happened, they are always there. And the whole history that the stadium has is amazing. I’m glad to play in here in Boston.”
Clippers 16, WooSox 4
Justin Hagenman threw a lot of strikes (34 out of 44 pitches), but unfortunately, the Clippers teed off on some of those. They strung together three straight home runs in the third inning and hit a total of four off Hagenman in his four innings of work.
Hagenman is currently in the WooSox rotation with his last three appearances coming as starts, but Tracy said that he’s not necessarily considering Hagenman a “starter.”
“If the rotation gets short, we can slide him into the rotation and maybe stretch him to four innings or maybe 4.1, but I don’t think it’s like he’s in the rotation for good,” Tracy said. “He’s in there, and then if he’s not in there, you’ll still see him throw two, three, 3.1 [innings] out of the pen to make sure that when we need to have him slide in there, he can do it. He’s suited for those roles.”
Eddy Alvarez smacked his eighth home run of the season, but other than that, the WooSox couldn’t get much cooking offensively until the late innings.
The WooSox showed some life in the seventh as Mickey Gasper reached on a walk and Mark Contreras missed a home run by inches and had to settle for a ground rule double. Chase Meidroth drove them both in with a double, and Nick Sogard brought him in with a sacrifice fly.
Niko Kavadas put together his third straight multi-hit game, going 2-for-4. Alvarez reached three times, adding a couple of walks in addition to his home run.
At the end of the day, the WooSox couldn’t compete with seven home runs from the Clippers, who put up 18 hits on the evening.
Notes
– The ABS system will be revamped for the second half of the season, according to reporting from ESPN’s Jesse Rogers. Instead of having a full automatic system for the first three games of every week, all teams will just use the challenge system that is currently in use for the latter three games of every series.
Another change for the International League will be a reduction in the number of challenges each team receives. Instead of three per game, each team will only have two. The idea is to cut back on the number of “high-challenge” games. According to the MLB memo obtained by ESPN, 89% of fans believe the optimal number of challenges per game is six or fewer; however, almost 40% of Triple-A games featured more than six since a team will retain a challenge if they are successful.
What’s Next
Josh Winckowski (2-2, 3.55) will get the ball on Wednesday against Darren McCaughan (4-2, 5.50) for the Clippers with first pitch at 6:45 p.m.
