Wilyer Abreu made history Monday night with a ridiculous outing at the plate at Fenway Park.
The Boston Red Sox outfielder hit both an inside-the-park home run and a grand slam in their 13-6 win over the Cincinnati Reds, making him just the sixth player in Major League Baseball history to do both things in the same game and the first since 1958.
Abreu’s inside-the-park home run came in the fifth inning, when the Red Sox were already up by three runs. He hit a deep shot that went 423 feet and almost cleared the center-field wall in Boston, but instead awkwardly bounced off the wall and back over Reds outfielder TJ Friedl’s head. By the time that happened, however, Abreu was already rounding second base — which gave him plenty of time to make it home safely.
That was the first inside-the-park home run from a Red Sox player since 2018, and the first in Boston since 2011. According to MLB.com, Abreu actually made it around the bases in less than 17 seconds, which put him at a top seed of 28.8 feet per second.
Then in the eighth inning with the bases loaded, Abreu got one to clear the outfield wall. He hit a grand slam into the Red Sox’s outfield bullpen, which put the Red Sox up by the final margin.
In total, Abreu had five RBI and two hits in his five at-bats in the win. He holds a .256 batting average with 16 home runs and 45 RBI on the season, his third with the Red Sox.
According to MLB’s Sarah Langs, Abreu’s combo has only been done five other times in league history. It had been nearly 67 years, however, since Roger Maris last did the same thing in a game. Abreu is the first Red Sox player to do it since 1939, when Jim Tabor pulled it off. Jocko Fields did it first in 1890.
The win for the Red Sox moved them to 42-44 on the season, though they still sit in fourth in the AL East. They’ve lost seven of their last nine games, too. The two teams will run it back Tuesday night for the second game of their three-game series.
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