Jarren Duran is in the middle of a nasty slump, and he’s not helping matters whatsoever with his behavior on the field. One particular play from Duran during the Boston Red Sox’s 5-4 win over the Athletics drew the ire of fans. With the game tied at 3-3 in the top of the sixth inning and Boston having two runners in scoring position, Duran hit a fly ball to shallow left field, which the A’s easily caught.
Willson Contreras, who was on third base, moved a bit towards home plate, but when it was clear that there was no way he was going to score outside of an error, he quickly returned to the bag. The throw towards home was on the money anyway from A’s left fielder Tyler Soderstrom, giving the Red Sox slugger no shot whatsoever at scoring the go-ahead run.
This did not stop Duran from gesturing a bit too heatedly towards Contreras, urging him to try his luck to score. Perhaps the Boston left fielder wanted Contreras to score so that wouldn’t appear as an out on his record.
Nevertheless, Contreras knows that Duran’s passion for the game simply got the better of him at that moment and he will back his teammate as long as they’re fighting for the same cause.
“I mean, I love Jarren. He’s one of the guys that plays with emotion, plays 100%. We love him here. And he’s one of the guys that if I need to go to war, I’m gonna pick him because he’s gonna give his 100%. I saw him doing some stuff. I would never take that personal. I love the guy, and we need the guy here. We need his energy,” Contreras said, via Christopher Smith of Mass Live.
Duran, however, downplayed the entire thing.
“That’s nothing. It’s something within the team that we have that we work on, and it’s nothing. You guys don’t need to know. Nobody needs to know. That’s something between us and the team that we know (what) it’s about. So that doesn’t really matter,” Duran added.
And with Duran not being in a particularly good headspace at the moment considering his postgame comments regarding himself, the Red Sox simply may be better off leaving him alone to try and get him to figure out what’s been going wrong for him in 2026.
Jarren Duran is in the middle of a nasty slump, and he’s not helping matters whatsoever with his behavior on the field. One particular play from Duran during the Boston Red Sox’s 5-4 win over the Athletics drew the ire of fans. With the game tied at 3-3 in the top of the sixth inning and Boston having two runners in scoring position, Duran hit a fly ball to shallow left field, which the A’s easily caught.
