By Woodrow Carroll
In the very near future, the Chicago White Sox’ Jose Abreu will play in his 1,000th game as a Major League Baseball (MLB) player. After Sunday’s 8-4 White Sox victory over Texas, in which Abreu hit his fifth home run of the season and drove in three runs, he was in game 982 in the MLB.
Abreu was 27 years old when he made his MLB debut with the White Sox in 2014. He was an instant hit. Enough of a hit that Abreu was awarded the American League (AL) Rookie of the Year Award.
Unlike so many promising athletes who are in their early 20s who find the going rough, Abreu was largely ready for MLB play.
Abreu played 10 seasons in Cuba for Cienfuegos before coming to the White Sox. Perhaps Abreu was not subjected to the grinding season a major leaguer might be put through. Still, Abreu had to prove himself against a host of players with MLB dreams while playing in Cuba.
The city of Cienfuegos is appoximately150 miles from Havana. The name of the City literally means 100 fires. The name comes from an early 19th Century political figure. In the pre-Fidel Castro years, the City was fertile ground for many MLB players in Winter baseball.
A glance at Abreu’s 2011-2012 statistics in Cienfuegos: In 384 plate appearances his batting average was .394. He had power! One didn’t need sabermetrics or an ouija board to realize that Abreu would be a good MLB fit.
The White Sox signed Abreu and his 2014 AL Rookie of the Year Award was just the beginning of good things to come for the franchise.
Good health has been another facet of Abreu’s time in MLB. Five of Abreu’s first six years in the big leagues, 2014-2019, he collected 600 or more plate appearances. To show the world he was getting better with age, in 2019 Abreu led the AL with a career-best 123 RBIs (runs batted in).
Allowing that last season’s COVID-19 cutback to the baseball season changed pro baseball dramatically, we still might take a look at what Abreu did under those circumstances.
Major League Baseball played a 60-game schedule in 2020. It was most welcome to many fans, when it looked for a time, that the game would be shut down entirely. Abreu played all 60 games. A 60-game run may not seem all that impressive until considering the overriding factors. The pandemic had everyone on edge not knowing what might happen at any time.
Not only did Abreu play all 60 of the White Sox scheduled games, he ended with 76 hits and 60 RBIs. Those two figures were the American League bests. A 162-RBI campaign for Abreu based on a regular season. It came as no surprise when Abreu was voted AL MVP.
Another welcome sight last season was the sight of the White Sox in the playoffs. It was the first postseason run for the Sox since 2008 when they were bounced from the playoffs by Tampa Bay.
A bit of a late-season meltdown, when the Sox dropped eight of their final 10 games, forced Sox to go on the road to open the playoffs.
Playing in Oakland, the Sox lost the best-of-three series, two games to one.
Last weekend in Chicago, the Sox swept the Texas Rangers in three straight games. The series ended with an 8-4 Sox victory It raised Sox record his fifth home run of the year with three RBIs.
Hi batting was only .225 after Sunday’s sweep., Abreu and the Sox welcome AL Central rivals Detroit and Minnesota to Chicago for three games apiece which started Tuesday.