He muffs simple plays in left field, runs into unforgiveable outs on the basepaths, and tussles with fans. When he is good, his is magnificent. He alchemizes triples out of harmless line drives.
He is impossible to predict for either his team, the Boston Red Sox, or for his opponents. But his greatest opponent, always, is himself. The brilliant Duran made an appearance on Tuesday, when his grand slam sealed the Red Sox's 7-3 extra-innings win over the Miami Marlins.
The Red Sox are agonizingly close to the New York Yankees for the top AL Wild Card spot, which comes with complete home-field advantage for the full three-game series. Tuesday's victory placed the Red Sox 1 1/2 games behind New York -- close enough to just barely grasp, yet far enough that any loss feels like five. With a little more than a month remaining in the regular season, now is the time that Duran can either be the light that sparks the Red Sox's victorious flame or that rends them to smoldering ashes.
There have been signs of the former, even before Tuesday's blast. This is the point where you'd expect a list of stats that illustrate Duran's turnaround -- how, since his batting average fell as low as .174, he's embarked on a surge as the Red Sox reversed their early cellar-dwelling ways. Of course, with Duran it's never that simple.
Although he homered in the opener of the previous series against the San Francisco Giants, he went hitless in the next game and didn't start the finale. The Red Sox swept that series. He went 2-for-4 in the series opener in South Florida on Monday, then played all 11 innings on Tuesday.
It's the Jarren Duran experience. Sometimes it feels as though Duran could fly so much higher if he could only get out of his own way. His finest work remains 2024, when he was one of the best outfielders in baseball and earned MLB All-Star Game MVP.
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