White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu named American League Player of the Week

Jose Abreu

What a difference eight or nine days can make in a shortened, 60-game season.

When play concluded on Aug. 15, the White Sox were down in the dumps. They looked terrible against the COVID-19-ravaged St. Louis Cardinals, getting swept in a doubleheader to drop to 10-11 on the season.

At that time, first baseman Jose Abreu was hitting .247/.289/.412 with three home runs and 12 RBIs. He looked like a 33-year-old slugger in decline.

But then Abreu homered on Aug. 16 as part of a back-to-back-to-back-to-back assault on St. Louis pitching in the fifth inning of a 7-2 victory over the Cardinals.

The Detroit Tigers then came to Guaranteed Rate Field for four games. The Sox won them all, with Abreu going 9 for 18 with a homer -- it was a game-winner on Aug. 19 -- and six RBIs in the four-game sweep.

Pretty good, huh?

Well, we hadn't seen anything yet. In a three-game weekend series against the Cubs at Wrigley Field, Abreu went 7 for 12 with six home runs and nine RBIs. Four of the six home runs came in consecutive plate appearances. Abreu homered in the sixth, eighth and ninth innings of Saturday's 7-4 victory, and again in the second inning of a 2-1 loss -- that defeat snapped a season-high seven-game winning streak for the Sox.

This was historic greatness for Abreu. Homering in four consecutive at-bats ties a Major League record, and six home runs in a three-game series? That's never happened in Sox history, and the Sox have been a team since 1901.

Abreu's season slash now stands at .322/.365/.669 with a league-leading 11 home runs and a league-leading 28 RBIs. His batting average ranks sixth in the AL, so all of a sudden, Abreu is in the hunt for a Triple Crown, and he's an MVP candidate.

After batting .533 this week, Abreu was a no-brainer choice for American League Player of the Week.

And the Sox? They are 17-12, tied with the Cleveland Indians for second place in the AL Central -- only 2.5 games back of first-place Minnesota. According to baseballreference.com, the Sox had a 93.7% chance of making the playoffs as of Monday morning.

That goes to show you how quickly things can change this season.