Center fielder Jarren Duran has struggled in his time with the Red Sox this season. In 57 games, he hit just .220 with a .648 OPS and a hefty strikeout rate of 28.8%. Reed Hoffmann/Associated Press
BOSTON — Jarren Duran hears the criticism. From the fans. On talk radio. Even from inside his own head.
The Red Sox outfielder knows what has been said about him, even if he’s tried to block it out. Making matters worse is that Duran’s ill-timed growing pains coincided with the Boston’s second-half slide, making him a poster child for the team’s lost summer.
Duran knows he did not play well during his stint in the majors and isn’t hiding from that fact. He has tried to avoid social media and negative interactions with fans, but the noise has crept in. In the Fenway Park dugout last week, a conversation about what Duran has learned in 2022 quickly turned to a discussion about the mental toll this season has taken on him.
“It has been pretty hard,” Duran said, four days before being optioned back to the minors after two months with the Red Sox. “I can’t talk about too much of it, but I’ve been pretty low this year. It has been a struggle to stay here (in the majors).
“I try so hard to please everybody so when I hear people badmouthing me and they’re our home fans, I take it to heart,” Duran said. “It’s like, ‘Dang, I need to try harder because I’m just trying to make everybody happy.’ It’s so hard. It’s a (game of failure), a (sport of failure). I just ask for forgiveness whenever I don’t do what they ask me to do. I’m trying my best. I just hope they know that.”
Duran’s second taste of big league action was a constant battle. In 57 games, he hit just .220 with a .648 OPS while flashing a strikeout rate (28.8%) that is much too high for a leadoff man. Given a chance to be Boston’s starting center fielder with Kiké Hernández injured, Duran often had issues in the outfield, both with tracking balls and making throws. There were the normal growing pains for a young player, like taking indirect routes to balls and being outmatched by big league pitching.
And there were the more stunning, abnormal moments, like when he lost fly balls in the sun and twilight or got picked off first base without even attempting to dive back.
Duran has always been exceedingly hard on himself, so he isn’t surprised that his struggles have gotten to him. After emerging as Boston’s top outfield prospect a year ago and playing well at Triple-A to start the season, Duran now fears becoming a bust. He said he has largely kept his feelings to himself out of fear of becoming a burden to those around him.
“I don’t really talk to my family about my low points because I’m so closed off to everybody,” he said. “I’m kind of just tearing myself up internally and get pretty depressed and stuff like that. I find it hard to reach out to people because I don’t want to bother other people with my problems. I kind of just build it up inside myself, which obviously makes everything a lot worse.
“(My teammates) have their own problems, too. I don’t know what they are going through so I try not to reach out to too many people. I don’t want to bug them with my problems.”
PLENTY OF SUPPORT AVAILABLE
Teammates and coaches believe a few things about Duran to be true. First, he holds himself to a higher standard than anyone else does. Next, he might just be the hardest worker who has suited up for the Red Sox this season. Third, he still possesses electrifying talent that has not yet been unlocked. And finally, the support system around him is larger than he realizes.
“It’s definitely hard at times seeing how hard he takes failure,” said Rob Refsnyder, one of Duran’s closest friends on the team. “We’re around these guys more than our families. I consider Jarren like a little brother in the sense that I try to take care of him as much as possible. But he’s his own guy. I have the utmost respect for Jarren and the way he goes about our game.”
Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom has noticed Duran beating himself up over his struggles and a resulting change in Duran’s demeanor. When Duran was tearing up Triple-A last season, Bloom saw a player who was bouncing off the walls with energy. Now, Duran is much quieter. His desire to fit into the clubhouse mix and not cause ripples has compounded the problem.
“We’re all human. If you are any kind of self-aware or conscientious person, it’s hard not to view yourself as a burden sometimes,” Bloom continued. “It doesn’t mean that’s the case. But I think it’s pretty normal to think of it that way and we have to be really proactive throughout a player’s journey in making sure that he understands, as much as possible, that that’s not how we see it.”
In addition to Refsnyder, a 31-year-old journeyman who has been through just about everything in baseball, Duran has found friends in Christian Arroyo and Bobby Dalbec. Trevor Story has become a mentor. As an organization, the Red Sox – who Bloom described as longtime pioneers in mental health, commit a significant amount of resources to the space. Boston has Rey Fuentes, a uniformed, traveling mental skills coordinator, as well as an entire behavioral health department. For young players, developing mental skills is just as important – if not more – as the physical side of the equation.
“Oftentimes they’re going to experience challenges and failures that they didn’t experience the same way on the way up,” Bloom said. “It’s going to bring new sides out of them. It’s going to demand new and different things of them. We have to try to be very active in opening guys up when it might be tougher to open up.”
NOT HELPING HIS CAUSE
The knocks on Duran have extended beyond his play. He, like teammate Tanner Houck, was criticized for missing the team’s series in Toronto because he was unvaccinated against COVID-19 then later said he would get the shot to be available for future series in Canada. Certain plays – like a ball he lost in the twilight during Boston’s historic 28-5 blowout loss to the Blue Jays on July 22 – have led to questions about his effort level.
But Red Sox officials insist that play was an outlier and that Duran’s work ethic has been rarely questioned. After all, he entered the majors with the reputation of a player whose intense drive to be great had turned him from a seventh-round pick into a legitimate prospect.
Duran doesn’t believe the media has been too harsh toward him. The negative coverage of his performance, he said, is not unexpected in a big market like Boston. And in his mind, it’s warranted.
“They’re just calling it as it is,” Duran said. “I’m obviously not doing very good. A lot of fans would want me out of here but (the media) just asks the questions they need to ask. I think they have been fair to me.”
Refsnyder, who broke in with the Yankees in 2015, knows what it’s like to be a rookie in a big market. Over time, he has gained perspective on how to handle adversity and criticism.
“It’s not fun, because we’re human beings, too,” he said. “But we get paid a ridiculous amount of money to play a game. It’s stressful, it’s hard, You’re the butt of the joke a lot of the time and you get celebrated more than you should for playing a game. It’s all of that intertwined in a four-hour thing. You’ve just got to take a step back and be an empath as much as possible.”
Refsnyder believes Duran will gain a similar perspective as time goes on.
“He’s learning,” Refsnyder said. “It’s only going to get better… Hopefully, the Boston fans see how hard he plays the game and support him. He’s a guy who feeds off energy and support.”
For now, Duran is trying to stay positive, even if his first couple tastes of the majors have not gone as hoped. He actively tries to focus on the positive things in his life, like his brother recently getting into physical therapy school or a friend getting promoted to Triple-A last week. It’s all very much a work in progress.
“When you don’t do good, you tear yourself up,” Duran said, who turns 26 next week. “But you have to try to pick up the strong things to keep yourself positive… which I struggle with. I’ve been trying to get better at it. But it’s hard when you’re beating yourself up all the time.”
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