El jugador estrella de los Red Sox escribe su nombre en la historia de la MLB….Un suceso sorprendente.
Jarren Duran, an outfielder for the Red Sox, is having a breakthrough season. According to Baseball Reference’s Wins Above Replacement, he is ranked fourth in MLB and is making a compelling case to be selected for his first All-Star team.
How is he managing to achieve this? Numerous elements exist, such as the following:
Defense: Duran is in the 95th percentile of MLB with 6 Outs Above Average. For a Red Sox squad that has generally struggled in the field—ranking lowest in MLB in errors (62), unearned runs (48), and fielding percentage (.979)—this has been a godsend.
Speed: According to Statcast’s Baserunning Run Value, which does not take into consideration Duran’s 20 steals—two of which came from home plate—he is ranked second in MLB after Corbin Carroll. Thanks in large part to his mobility, Duran leads MLB in triples with ten, and he looks to be the first player to reach twenty since Jimmy Rollins and Curtis Granderson did so in 2007.
Durability: Availability is the best skill, and Duran has demonstrated that by being the first outfielder from Boston to start all 80 of the team’s games since Jim Rice in 1986.
However, Duran’s success also stems from a far more subtle quality: Duran is known as MLB’s “Mr. Oppo.”
The left-handed Duran is only batting.219 when he pulls the ball. With at least 50 pulled batted balls, this is the second-lowest mark in the Majors, surpassed only by Nick Fortes of Miami, and about 150 points below the MLB average.
On the other hand, the storyline is completely different when it comes to hitting the ball to the other field. Duran has a batting average of.468 and a slugging percentage of.722 on balls that have gone “oppo,” with an MLB-high 16 doubles. With at least 50 batted balls to the opposite field, the batting average is second only to teammate Rafael Devers among MLB players. In fact, Boston has three of the top five hitting averages when the minimum is lowered to 40 batted balls, Duran included, along with Devers and Connor Wong.
About his success on the other side of the field, Duran told The Boston Globe earlier this season, “I just think it’s one of those things where that’s just the way I’m being pitched right now.” “I’m just sort of going with the flow. I’m not making an excessive effort. I’m not attempting to exert excessive force on anything. Just trying to be flexible and go in a different direction. For now, things are going well. It’s how they’re trying to sell me. I’m just following their pitch, then.”
Applying a historical perspective makes this difference even more striking. When hitting opposite field, Duran’s batting average of.468 is 249 points higher than his batting average of.219 on pulled balls. That is the fifth-highest differential among the 2,959 players who had at least 70 pulled batted balls and 70 opposite-field batted balls in a season during the pitch tracking era (starting in 2008). Additionally, it’s by far the biggest total for a season since MLB started limiting defensive shifts in 2023 to make it more difficult for clubs to stop pulled balls.
Manager of the Red Sox Alex Cora told The Boston Globe, “I think there’s a lot of extra-base hits that way [toward the Green Monster].” “We did not tell him to turn around in this situation. However, I’m happy that he’s adopting a humble stance—especially after two strikes. He is receiving hits and is able to put the ball in play.
Duran’s career has been marked by success on the opposite field, even though this year has stood out for him in particular. He has a.291 batting average and a.535 slugging percentage on pulled balls across his four MLB seasons. Though not insignificant, those figures are nevertheless surpassed by his lifetime opposite-field hitting average of.407 and slugging percentage of.667.
