You Can Add Crashing Out And Yelling At A Teammate To The Jarren Duran File As The Red Sox Score One Of Their Biggest Wins Of The Year
Another addition to the ever-growing Jarren Duran File
The Red Sox had one of their best wins of the season on Thursday, coming back to beat the A's 5-4, thanks to a pair of late home runs from Wilyer Abreu and Wilson Contreras.
But this moment from earlier in the game is going to get a lot of, if not most of, the attention. And for all the wrong reasons.
With Wilson Contreras on third base in the 6th inning, Jarren Duran hit a 200-foot fly ball. It was a fly ball that, like, even a bald Red Sox blogger watching on the couch could see was nowhere NEAR deep enough to score Duran. Third base coach Chad Epperson held Contreras, and it was 100% the right call.
Jarren Duran disagreed.
Duran was pissed. He had a crashout right there on the field as his team was trying to win their 7th consecutive series. I don't know if he was mad at Contreras or Epperson, but he's big mad.
The only person he should be mad at his himself, for not hitting a deeper fly ball and getting the run home.
Duran has been terrible at the plate this season. After an 0-4 and this temper tantrum on Thursday night, he's batting just .195, slugging .337, and has an OPS of .589. How do those stats rank among qualified hitters in all of Major League Baseball?
Glad you asked!
.195 batting average - is dead last in all of baseball among qualified hitters. Ranked #146 out of 146.
.337 slugging - Ranked #141 of 146
.589 OPS - Ranked #145 of 146
So he's a terrible hitter, AND he's willing to show up his own much more productive teammates on the field. Great combo!
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Duran did not cool down when he got to the dugout. Will Flemming said on the radio broadcast that he threw a tablet in anger, before standing by himself in the dugout. We know about that last part because the A's TV broadcast was roasting Duran. Led by Dallas Braden, they spent over two minutes talking about the play and Duran's actions. It's really good.
Just a terrible look for Duran, who is going to be 30 (!!!) in September and claimed he wanted to be more of a team leader this year. A leader would have said after the game that they overreacted and that it was dumb to be mad at anyone but himself in that spot. Did Duran do that?
"That's nothing. It's something that, within the team, that we have, that we work on, and it's nothing. Like, you guys don't need to know. Nobody needs to know. … So that doesn't really matter."
He sure didn't. He made it into a "team vs media" thing. He knew he'd get that question and still had a shitty, nonsensical answer. Brutal stuff.
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Chad Tracy covered for him, which I don't love, but hopefully he's giving Duran a different message in the clubhouse. And hopefully Duran is benched on Friday Night in LA against the Dodgers.
Contreras also backed his teammate: "I love Jarren … If I need to go to war, I’ll pick him.” “I love that guy, we need that guy here, we need his energy.” Contreras deserves a ton of credit for not going back at Duran in the dugout.
These still shots convey a team that is eyerolling the actions of their left fielder.
I don't know why the team keeps covering for him - he'd had more 'incidents' this year than big hits.
⚾ Yelling at a fan
⚾ Had to be pulled away from yelling at a fan
⚾ Blew off the media day after Alex Cora was fired
⚾ Threatened to beat up Tyler Milliken of the Section 10 Podcast. Shoutout Carrabis.
⚾ Then, when Milliken tried to talk to him face to face, Duran just walked away
And now this is very visible on-field, show-up-my-teammate, look-at-me, temper-tantrum bullshit.
The trade deadline is Monday, and his name has come up in multiple reports. You'd be selling low, but trading Duran seems like an obvious move. Roman Anthony is finally progressing in his rehab. The guy is one of the worst hitters in the sport (Duran, not Roman)- how bad can it be with Yoshida out there three or four days a week until Anthony returns? This Red Sox team is going to the playoffs and in a bad AL, maybe making a deep run. But that Monday deadline looms - for Breslow and Duran.
You can sell low now on a .195 hitter who’s still throwing tablets and showing up teammates, or you can keep pretending this version of Jarren Duran is going to figure it out and turn into a leader.
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One of those options is a lot less painful.