The baseball world has been going crazy about Jose Abreu’s weekend in the crosstown classic. Six home runs in three games against the Cubs, including four consecutive at-bats with a home run.
Below is a look at all six of Abreu’s home runs from this past weekend.
What is so impressive to me is that they came off of six different pitchers and off of six different pitches. It’s not like the Cubs were just throwing him fastballs or anything, they never made the same mistake twice.
Below is the location of those pitches Abreu hit for home runs (baseballsavant).
Jose Abreu Home Runs By Location (White Sox-Cubs Series)
None of them were right down the middle. As you’ll see in the next image (baseball savant), there really hasn’t been a great place to pitch Abreu in the zone all season.
Jose Abreu Batting Average By Location (2020)
The best places to pitch him are up and in and then try and get him to chase out of the zone down and away, but right now it might be better not to pitch to him at all.
If we look at Abreu this season broken down by pitch type we see he struggles most against sliders, curveballs and cutters. I’d expect for him to see a heavy dosage of those going forward. He’s destroying fastballs so you’d have to expect pitchers to start pitching him differently.
Abreu has been crushing the ball all year; he’s hit 52 balls with an exit velocity of 95+ mph. Only Fernando Tatis Jr. has hit more (53). Let’s hope he can keep it going because once you add in all the young power in this order with Robert, Jimenez, Anderson and Moncada, the veteran power presence of Jose Abreu makes this lineup terrifying for opposing pitchers.