Abreu’s most un-clutch game of the season occurred on April 12th against the Minnesota Twins. The White Sox lost 4–0 as the Twins dominated behind Jose Berrios and his 11 strikeouts over 7 innings. Below we have the 5 events that Abreu took part in over the course of the game. The left of this table is relatively self-explanatory, but the right side might be new. The following statistics are explained in more detail on Fangraphs. Both WPA and LI are included in the calculations of how clutch a player has been.

LI — Leverage Index

RE — Run Expectancy

WE — Win Expectancy

WPA — Win Probability Added

RE24 — The change in run expectancy given the 24 base-out combinations possible in the game of baseball.

In-play events from 4/12

Abreu made the final out of the first on a 1–2 sweeping slider that fooled him bad. The run expectancy in the inning was already only 0.12 runs when he took his spot in the batter’s box, but Berrios quickly disposed of Abreu bringing the inning to an end an the run expectancy to zero.

His next opportunity came in the 4th with a runner on first. On an 0–1 pitch Abreu got jammed and grounded into a double play. Only making matters worse, Abreu tripped over his bat and hobbled back to the dugout. This was the most important at-bat of the game for the White Sox. Abreu lowered the inning run expectancy from 0.95 runs to 0.12 runs. A miserable result and one that was certainly a turning point in the game.

In his next at-bat, Abreu led off the 7th. Berrios who was still pitching got ahead quickly and finished Abreu with another slider similar to the first inning. Leading off the inning, the White Sox had a run expectancy of slightly over a half a run as Abreu entered the batter’s box. After the whiff on the 1–2 slider, the run expectancy was cut by over half. Not the way to start a rally in a still winnable 2–0 game.

Abreu got his final at-bat of the night with two outs in the 9th. Down 4 runs with no one on-base, the importance of this at-bat was essentially zero as he hit a chopper to the third baseman Sano who couldn’t handle it. While he did reach base, the White Sox already only had a 0.1% chance of winning the game. Him reaching base added 0.3 percentage points to the White Sox chances. The bobble by Sano was essentially meaningless.

As his last action of the game, Abreu took second on defensive indifference. A play so insignificant they didn’t even show him at second on the telecast. Abreu failed to get anything going in the first and the seventh when the game was still within reach, striking out both time. Additionally, his double play killed the lead off base runner in the 4th when the game remained in reach at 2–0 Twins. Overall, Abreu had a rough day at the dish and certainly didn’t help his team in a winnable game. Abreu is a good hitter and that is partially why he suffers from the notion that he isn’t clutch. Performing in tight circumstances is hard, especially to the level he usually plays. Nonetheless, we’ll continue to monitor Abreu as he puts together another solid season for the Southsiders.