Following weeks of doubt, Red Sox now encouraged that Wilyer Abreu will be ready by Opening Day
Abreu will make his spring training debut on Saturday after being sidelined for multiple weeks due to a gastrointestinal virus.
After worrying for much of spring training that Wilyer Abreu would be sidelined for Opening Day, the Red Sox don’t seem to think that will be the case.
Abreu will make his spring training debut in Saturday’s game against the Braves as Alex Cora believes the outfielder is in a good spot to be ready for the start of the regular season after missing time due to a gastrointestinal virus.
“[Facing] Chris Sale. You wanna play? There you go,” the Red Sox manager told reporters. “Physically, everybody feels he’s in a good spot. Now, it’s just [a matter] of the at-bats. He can catch up. We know that. We’ll see where it takes us, but I’m confident that, physically, he’s in a good spot.”
The gastrointestinal virus caused Abreu to “lose a little bit of weight,” sidelining him from all activities until the very end of February. As Abreu was working from behind, Cora was reasonably concerned that there wouldn’t be enough time for him to be ready to go for Opening Day on March 27.
“I think I was a little bit worried that the numbers weren’t going to get there sooner rather than later,” Cora said of Abreu’s recent test results. “But these [numbers] are great news, and now we just go.”
While Cora wasn’t optimistic that Abreu would be ready to go for the start of the regular season, the reigning Gold Glove outfielder told reporters in late February that he thought he had enough time to get ready for the new year.
“I think it might have helped me a little bit just because I feel I’m more in form than I was,” Abreu said of his illness, via Red Sox translator Daveson Perez. “I know it was a sickness, or whatever you want to call it, but I think that the weight loss has kind of helped me a little bit.”
Despite Abreu’s optimism, Cora hinted earlier in March that he would be ready to go come Opening Day. He admitted that the recent change in Abreu’s testing numbers helped change his opinion on the matter.
“Honestly, he didn’t lose too much,” Cora said. “I know it looks that way, but he feels stronger. The numbers back that up. So, now it’s just the reps, and at-bats-wise, defensively, he’s been doing that the whole week.”
Abreu was one of the top rookies in all of baseball last season. At the plate, the 25-year-old hit .253 with a .781 OPS, 15 homers, and 58 RBIs over 132 games. In right field, his fielding run value (nine) topped all players at the position while his outs above average (six) was the second-best mark among his peers.
If Abreu is indeed in the lineup when the Red Sox open the 2025 season against the Rangers on March 27, that’d be one less thing for them to worry about with their lineup. Abreu isn’t the only left-handed hitter working his way back from an ailment this spring, with Rafael Devers and Masataka Yoshida each missing time.
Devers will make his spring training debut on Saturday, though, and is expected to be ready to go come Opening Day. Yoshida, meanwhile, has been playing, but he could start the year on the injured list as he’s still ramping up his throwing following offseason shoulder surgery.
As Yoshida has only been throwing at 60 feet so far, Cora seemed to hint that he’ll have to be ready to play the outfield before being activated for the regular season.
“We’ll get there when we get there,” Cora said of Yoshida. “We talked to him a little bit the last few days about where we are at, and obviously decisions that will be made. Playing the outfield is something that is very important.”
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