Red Sox outfield prospect Wilyer Abreu homers three times for Triple-A Worcester

Abreu next stepped up to the plate with two outs and nobody on in the fourth. Going up against Buffalo reliever Paxton Schultz, the 24-year-old again took aim at Summit Street and belted a first-pitch changeup 457 feet over everyone’s heads in right -center field. The ball left Abreu’s bat at 106.3 mph and put Worcester up 7-3 going into the fifth.

Shortly thereafter, Abreu came through once more. After Enmanuel Valdez plated David Hamilton with a two-out double off veteran righty Matt Wisler, Abreu extended the bottom half of the sixth inning by drilling a 1-2 slider 418 feet to right field to give the WooSox a commanding 10-4 edge.

Though Abreu flew out in his final trip to the plate in the eighth inning, Bobby Dalbec (who previously homered) and Stephen Scott went back-to-back off Rowan Wick to put the finishing touches on a 13-4 blowout victory for Worcester as it improved to 24-14 in the second half and 63-50 on the season overall.

By putting together the first three-homer game of his professional career and in WooSox history, Abreu brought his home run total on the season up to 20 in 129 games. That represents a career-best after he hit 19 in 129 Double-A contests last year.

Following Sunday’s memorable performance, Abreu is now batting a respectable .268/.380/.521 with nine doubles, one triple, those 20 homers, 58 RBIs, 60 runs scored, six stolen bases, 52 walks, and 72 strikeouts in exactly 80 games (337 plate appearances) for the WooSox this season.

For as encouraging as those numbers are, it’s worth mentioning that Abreu found himself slashing just .238/.357/.438 through 69 games after a rough month of July (that can likely be attributed to spending time on the injured list with a right hamstring strain in June) in which he posted a .670 OPS. Since the calendar flipped to August, though, Abreu has turned a corner offensively and has been a much more dangerous hitter.

In his last 11 games dating back to the start of the month, Abreu has batted .450/.522/1.025 with two doubles, seven home runs, 18 RBIs, and 11 runs scored. Halfway through this homestand, Abreu went a ridiculous 13-for-22 (.591) with six homers and 16 RBIs in six games against Buffalo and is a sure bet to earn International League Player of the Week honors as a result.

Defensively, Abreu made his 31st start of the season in left field in Sunday’s win over the Bisons. So far this year, the 5-foot-10, 215-pounder has logged 267 innings in left, 219 1/3 innings in right, and 119 innings in center. He has recorded just two errors in 139 total chances while recording a team-leading nine outfield assists.

Abreu is in the midst of his first full season as a member of the Red Sox organization after coming over from the Astros with Valdez in the Christian Vazquez trade last August. The native Venezuelan originally signed with Houston for $300,000 as an international free agent coming out of Maracaibo in July 2017 .

While Valdez has already made his major-league debut for the Sox, it does not appear as though Abreu — the organization’s No. 26 prospect according to Baseball America — is too far behind. Like Valdez to a certain extent, Abreu was added to Boston’s 40-man roster last fall so that he could not be taken by another club in the Rule 5 Draft.

Taking that point into consideration, the Red Sox would not be required to make a corresponding 40-man roster move to call up Abreu if that occasion arises before season’s end. In fact, Abreu’s path to Boston opens up some in a couple of weeks when big-league rosters expand from 26 to 28 players at the start of September.

Unlike top prospect Ceddanne Rafaela, for instance, Abreu has spent the entirety of the 2023 campaign with Worcester, which should play into his favor if the Red Sox express a desire or need to call up an additional outfielder at some point during the final stretch of the major-league season.

In the meantime, Abreu and the WooSox are off on Monday and are then slated to open a six-game series against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders at Polar Park on Tuesday night. Abreu, for what it’s worth, is currently riding a six-game hitting streak.