Behind an improving Jarren Duran, the Red Sox are making progress

Outfielder Jarren Duran deserves a tip of the cap for the tweaks he’s been making at the plate. Since the calendar turned to May, number 16 has driven in seven runs and knocked four extra-base hits, including three homers. Over the last seven days, his triple slash reads .269/.321/.538 for an .860 OPS. Not too bad for a guy who’s OPS began with a four by April’s end. It’s no secret that Duran’s first few weeks at the plate this year were capital B-Bad. If you thought to yourself at any point in late March or April, “Wow, Jarren just hasn’t been lifting the ball a ton this year,” then your eyes weren’t deceiving you. Leading up to Sunday’s finale against the Rays, Jarren’s ground ball rate stood at exactly 50%, considerably higher than the 41.5% mark he had in 2025 and still above his 46.8% rate in his excellent 2024 campaign. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that his fly ball and line drive rates had fallen from around 25% last year down to around 22% and 17% respectively prior to yesterday’s game. Now, I’m not smart enough to tell you exactly *why* he wasn’t able to drive the ball at the start of the season (don’t be a smart ass in the comments by saying that I should’ve just stopped that sentence after the first five words), but that mixed with the strikeouts and lack of walks is a recipe for disaster. I did mention on a recent episode of Pod On Lansdowne that some more slugging could be seen out of him if he could just start lifting the ball more. His bat speed and the rest of his physical profile has looked fine, he wasn’t it’s just that the approach had been all wrong. I’m not sure what changed—maybe it was the leg kick or the tweaks to the batting stance, maybe he’s just gotten hot—but lo and behold: Duran has started to produce more on offense after seeing more batted balls in the air. Just take a look at the rolling xwOBA chart courtesy of Savant, referencing his last 100 plate appearances prior to Sunday:

Is that where we truly need Duran’s production to be? No, of course not. His OPS+ is still 66 (so I guess he hasn’t been *executing orders* at a good enough of a clip) But the bat is coming around a bit, and like I said at the beginning: we gotta take what we can get. Duran’s little turnaround could be a microcosm for the offense at large. The team’s hard hit rate has consistently been with the top third or half of the league in 2026, but their average launch angle of just under 12% is within the bottom five across MLB. Simply put: they were only doing one of the two key pillars of the Ted Williams philosophy.

So, perhaps Duran can be representative of a sea change within Boston’s lineup. It’s something to monitor, at the very least. Let’s start seeing some more liners and fly balls, please.

It was a tale of two starts for the Piglet this week, as top pitching prospect Payton Tolle hurled one gem against the Motor City Kitties before tossing one……well, not a gem against the Devil Rays. One outing to remind you of the type of ceiling this dude has, another to leave us with a bit of a bad taste in our mouth heading into the new week and today’s idle spot on the schedule. Yet in both of those starts, one thing remained consistent: Tolle limited the free passes. In 12 innings of work over the past week, the lefty only issued one walk. It’s a continuation of a positive trend, as Tolle’s walk rate of 9% this year is right around league average (God, is this the Brushback where I just hype up league average metrics?). That’s better than the walk rate of nearly 11% he had last year, as he walked eight batters in 16.1 innings. Now, are both of those sample sizes really small? Yeah. Could that thus make trying to deduce anything from them a useless endeavor? Maybe. However, consider that Tolle’s command looks to be more sharp while he’s introducing more of his secondaries into his arsenal (1-0 West Ham; it was very obviously a foul on Raya, cry more). The sinker of his is being deployed about a quarter of the time nowadays compared to the 10% usage rate it had in his cup of coffee in 2025. His cutter and curveball usage in 2026 also keeps guys honest outside of his primary, dynamite four-seam fastball. It’s four pitches batters really have to consider seeing when they step into the box to face Tolle, but the 23-year-old is making that approach even more difficult for the opposition by not letting them off the hook with walks. The development of secondary pitches (albeit two of them are different types of fastballs) was the major question mark—and maybe that’s even being a bit harsh—for Tolle entering this season in my book. So far, so good on that front (even after Sunday’s rough outing). We all know the strikeout upside he presents is out of this world. We know his stuff is insane, and we know he’s got the makeup of a starter who could be slotted into the top half of the rotation down the line if things go right. If the command is coming around to even a league-average level with that raw stuff, the Piglet could be unlocking even more parts of his game. Color me intrigued.

A very quick word on some injury developments to wrap things up because it’s late when I’m writing this and I’m exhausted. To quote Homer Simpson after he ate 64 slices of American cheese, I think I’m blind. First: Justin Slaten is back! That’s good! The bullpen could certainly use some reinforcements, especially in the back half of games. The 28-year-old has, by and large, displayed impressive stuff on the hill when pitching in relief since making his debut with the Sox in 2024. Considering some of the duds we’ve seen from the arm barn recently—I’m looking at Weissert, Watson, and Kelly specifically—Slaten’s return after a roughly month-long absence is absolutely a welcome sign. If the path forward is defense and run prevention, we need all hands on deck. Second: Willson Contreras’ X-rays were negative after he got hit on the hand with a pitch on Sunday, according to the Boston Globe. A lengthy WC40 absence could’ve been devastating for both the lineup along with the infield defense, but it doesn’t sound like we’re in a worst-case scenario here as I write this. Then again: I guess it didn’t seem like Roman Anthony would be placed on the IL after he had a wrist issue of his own last week in Detroit, though his return is expected to be imminent. The last thing Boston needs is a case of the injury bug making its way through the clubhouse. Fingers are firmly crossed.