It’s hard to see something that has never happened before at Fenway Park, which has been open since 1912, but Wilyer Abreu made history on Monday.
The Red Sox outfielder is the first player in almost 70 years to hit both an inside-the-park home run and a grand slam in the same game. He is the seventh player in Major League Baseball history to accomplish that feat, but no one had done it at Fenway until Monday.
«I didn’t know that,» said Wilyer Abreu in Spanish after Monday’s game, in which the Red Sox beat the Cincinnati Reds 13–6. «It’s something special, and I’m really happy to be on that list. The inside-the-parker was more fun, but you end up tired. Jogging around the bases is better.»
Wilyer Abreu’s inside-the-park home run would have been a conventional home run in 29 of the 30 ballparks in the league. It was a 410-foot blast off the center field wall, right where the triangle is.
At first, he and manager Alex Cora thought the ball was gone, but then Cora started yelling for him to run.
«When he hit it, he thought he had it,» said Cora. «Then after that, he did it. It was a tricky part of the triangle over there that can have him. He got a fastball that he can handle down in the zone. That’s something that we have been talking about with him. He gets a lot of pitches, especially the fastballs. So where we want the fastball, and there is a lot of communication lately about who you are as a hitter and what we need to attack.»
Abreu became the seventh player to hit both a grand slam and an inside-the-park home run in the same game, joining Roger Maris, Jim Tabor, Charlie Gehringer, Everett Scott, and Jocko Fields, according to Sarah Langs.
The Venezuelan-born player hit 15 homers last year in 132 games, and he already has 16 in 74 games so far this season.
«It was fun,» said Trevor Story on Monday. «One of the most exciting things. You can see how pumped up he was at the end, sliding into the home. That just shows you right there the excitement and the passion that comes from it.»
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Wilyer Abreu became the first Red Sox player to hit an inside-the-park home run at Fenway Park since Jacoby Ellsbury in 2011. He also became the second Red Sox player to hit both an inside-the-parker and a grand slam in the same game since Jim Tabor in 1939.
Photo: @RedSox
