Red Sox' Jarren Duran on trade rumors, what's ‘holding' him back, expectations
"I feel like I'm putting this expectation on me to be the All-Star Game MVP guy every single night," Duran said Friday before Boston's game against the Blue Jays here at Fenway Park. 'I'm not really looking at it like it takes a whole season to be that player.'
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Duran has gone 11-for-65 (.169 batting average) with a .217 on-base percentage and .292 slugging percentage in his past 17 games dating back to June 7 in New York. His season OPS is down to .711, 123 points lower than last year.
'I'm trying to kind of do it all at once every single night,' Duran said. 'And I feel like that's something that's kind of holding me back. So I think something I'm trying to do is just simplify everything and just take it one game at a time."
The 28-year-old is leading the league in triples (8) but his .254/.307/.404/.711 line is down from .288/.349/.487/.836 on this date last season.
'Yeah, it's frustrating but I think it's more frustrating that I want to do better for the team and I'm not," Duran said. 'Honestly, I think right now I'm just trying to simplify things because I know that I'm trying to do too much just like all around. I just know that I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself.'
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Duran said being named in trade rumors has not affected his play on the field. ESPN's Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel recently ranked MLB's top 50 trade deadline candidates. They had Duran second on the list, predicting a 25% chance of him getting traded.
'I mean, they talked about me last year getting traded, too, to the Padres and stuff like that,' Duran said. 'But I don't really take any of that into account because I don't really have any say over it. I have no say like, 'Hey, I don't want to go' or 'Hey, I do want to go.' So there's no point in me to like stress over it, which is kind of rare for me because I stress about everything. So for me not to stress over that is kind of a good thing. But yeah, I haven't really thought about it or anything like that. I'm just happy to be here and be with the guys.'
Duran's home/road splits are considerably different. He's batting .294 with a .356 on-base percentage, .481 slugging percentage and .837 OPS in 39 games (177 plate appearances) at Fenway Park. He's slashing .220/.263/.335/.598 in 42 games (195 plate appearances) on the road.
Duran said he was unaware his numbers were much better at Fenway and so he doesn't know how to explain it.
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'I feel like I'm not as comfortable at home,' Duran said.
Duran has hit some balls very hard recently that have resulted in outs. He's in the 89th percentile in average exit velocity (92.3 mph) and 72nd percentile in hard hit percentage (46.9%) among major league hitters this season. He's also had excellent bat speed, ranking in the 84th percentile (74.5).
Does he look at the expected numbers compared to the actual numbers to help calm him a bit?
'I don't really look at any of the numbers," Duran said. 'Sometimes I don't really understand what they're trying to do. But I know hitting the ball hard is always a good place to start. It means I'm getting the pitch I want, I'm putting a good swing on it and stuff like that. But we all know baseball's a very frustrating sport. And I can hit it 115 (mph) right at a guy and still get out and it's still going to show up 0-for-1. It's not going to say, 'Oh, at least he hit it hard.' But maybe I'll find like a little duck ball that falls in and it gets me rollin'."
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Manager Alex Cora said he's not sure why Duran hasn't been able to get going offensively for a consistent stretch.
'No idea, man. Wish I knew,' Cora said. 'It's not lack of effort or preparation. It just hasn't happened. I think he hit the ball hard a few times during the road trip. Hopefully here he can hit a few off the wall and get that good feeling.'
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