Wilyer Abreu keeps making the kind of outfield plays that remind you why the Red Sox trust him so much in right field.
The latest example came this week against the Chicago White Sox, on a line drive headed toward the line in right. Abreu got over there, tracked it down and made the catch on the run.
No slide. No dive.
Not even a look that suggested he was stretched to the limit.
On the surface, it looked routine. Statcast told a different story, tagging the play with a 20% catch probability. That’s the kind of number that makes you blink a little, because the grab never seemed nearly that difficult.
The real separator was the jump. Abreu got to the ball nine feet better than an average outfielder, and that’s where the play was won. He was already a couple of steps ahead of where most outfielders would have been, and once he read it right, the rest followed naturally.
That’s the part of outfield defense that can get overlooked. A clean route, an instant reaction and a quick first step can erase a lot of ground before the play even looks hard.
It’s also why raw speed alone doesn’t tell the full story. Some of the fastest players in baseball, like Tampa Bay’s Chandler Simpson and Philadelphia’s Justin Crawford, aren’t even good outfielders.
Abreu is different. He’s one of the best outfielders in baseball, and plays like this explain why. He has the arm, the instincts and the hand-eye coordination to turn a ball that should be dangerous into something that looks almost easy.
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