Re: Abreu - the only issue is whether he can hit lefties. Cora doesn't seem very confident that he can.
He's had a very limited showing against LHP, but yeah, it's been ugly.
The BB% is slashed in half, the K% is doubled. Not good stuff. It's only 30 plate appearances, of course, and guys can improve... but there's not really any reason to do that right now with Rafaela, Refsnyder, and O'Neill all on the team.
He might be a strong-sided platoon guy for his entire career, which doesn't make him
bad per se, just the sort of guy you're probably going to keep as long as he's cheap and then let walk.
As for the team as a whole... my sense is that the Sox's woes with runners on base are largely driving their miserable May performance, and on the year, I dove into how it was bad in an earlier post. But it's been extra bad in May. Red Sox are middle of the pack as a team offensively for the month with the bases empty, a 91 wrc+, good for 16th in the league.
With runners on base, they fall to 26th in the league, with a wrc+ of 77.
With RISP, it's even worse, 27th in all of baseball, a wrc+ of 68.
And yeah, I don't think this is predictive, and that they'll do much better in the future. But when I look at the gap between their Pythag and their record, I can't help thinking their performance with RISP is a huge part of it.