By Woodrow Carroll
Through Sunday, Jose Abreu of the Chicago White Sox’ was the team leader in runs batted in (RBI) with 78.. Abreu will have to do something spectacular to average an RBI per game which he did last season when he drove in 60 runs in the shortened 60-game season conducted by Major League Baseball. Still, the 100-RBI threshold, which we have come to expect from Abreu, is well within reach this season.
Abreu started hot in RBIs this season with several early-season grand slam home runs. It allowed his RBI total to mount in a hurry. Of late, Abreu has come up with another tactic for driving in runs, a somewhat painful method: Getting hit with the bases loaded.
Last weekend the White Sox played host to the Cleveland Indians in a three-game series In the opening game, Abreu was hit by pitches twice. The second plunking was in the eighth inning with the bases loaded and was a nasty shot to the helmet.
Getting hit with the bases leaded means an RBI. The run that Abreu brought in made the score 6-4 in favor of the White Sox which proved to be the final score. In spite of that nasty shot to the head, Abreu stayed in the game.
Cleveland took the second game of the three-game series, 12-11, by holding off a late Sox rally. Abreu had a more conventional RBI in the Sox defeat with an RBI single in the eighth inning.
The Sox won Sunday’s series finale, 2-1. Cleveland led 1-0 in the fifth inning when Abreu came to the plate with the bases loaded. The score was quickly tied when Abreu took one in the body for the team.
Heroics were provided for the Sox Sunday when Brian Goodwin hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth to give the Sox a 2-1 victory.
• The Sox-Cleveland series was another plentiful in attendance for the White Sox. All three games pulled in crowds of 34,000 or more with a season-high of 36,123 Friday evening.
Although the Sox may not conclude the campaign with the best record in the Majors League Baseball (MLB), the Sox playoff prospects are the best of all the teams. The lead over second-place Cleveland was eight-and-a-half games in the American League Central through Monday. It would take a major meltdown for the Sox not to make the playoffs.
• Nobody does it better at home than the White Sox who were 37-18 in won-loss at home through Sunday. The 37 victories were the most of any team in the MLB. The Sox, however, have been less than robust on road with a 25-26 record.
Perhaps the strangest home-and-away figures belong to the Milwaukee Brewers and Colorado Rockies. The Brewers were 29-24 at home and 34-19 on the road. The Rockies pointed to a 33-20 record at home. The road, however, has been rocky for the Rockies, who were 13-40 in away games.
• With a shot at making the playoffs growing slim, the Chicago Cubs unloaded some big names in Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, and Craig Kimbrel, each to a different team.
The 2016 Cubs won 103 games and captured the World Series championship with a seven-game conquest of Cleveland. Bryant, Rizzo, and Baez were key players in the championship run.
Now it is the Sox who are riding high and the Cubs, after five playoff seasons in the past six years and were 84-78 in 2019 to miss the playoffs, seek to avoid their first losing season since 2014.