Less than 20 games into the regular season, the Boston Red Sox are already at the top of MLB's strikeout leaderboard.
Boston's bats have struggled in the first few weeks of the campaign, besides Kristian Campbell and Wilyer Abreu. The former, a rookie, has reached base in every single game he's played, and the latter missed nearly his entire spring training with a stomach illness. The rest of the offense has been quite unreliable, and the Sox have racked up 179 strikeouts in their first 18 games.
Strikeouts aren't the end of the Red Sox's offensive woes. They've grounded into 12 double plays and they're batting .233/.325/.367 with runners in scoring position. It's well established that Rafael Devers got off to a rough start, but Jarren Duran has been right there with him — the Sox's first two bats struggling to get on base could be detrimental to their run production.
Duran is batting just .230/.284/.297 with three doubles, one triple, five walks and 20 strikeouts over 17 games. The outfielder's early production is a stark change from his 2024 breakout season numbers when he batted .285/.342/.492 and led MLB in extra-base hits over 160 games. Red Sox manager Alex Cora addressed Duran's early struggles before Boston's 16-1 blowout loss to the Rays.
Without Jarren Duran on the base paths, the Red Sox have struggled to produce runs
“All over the place,” Cora said, per Christopher Smith of MassLive. “Sometimes patient, sometimes too aggressive. He’s getting into swing mode in certain at-bats and swinging and missing a lot. That’s the reality of it.”
Duran — and the Red Sox, as a whole — have fanned at an unusually high clip so far. It's still early in the season, but his chase rate is down to the 32nd percentile from the 51st percentile last year. When he does make contact, he's been unlucky, as he's only gathered 17 hits so far. Cora mentioned to Smith that Duran needs to hit to left field again, which he did successfully during Boston's series in Baltimore. He had a two-hit, three RBI day, the best of his season so far, at Camden Yards on March 31.
The Red Sox have a low success rate with runners in scoring position while Duran is in a funk. Not only are Boston's top hitters not getting on base and hardly scoring runs, the middle of the order that is getting on base isn't as fast as Duran, one of the speediest players in the game. The Red Sox have lacked power so far, and speed on the base paths could've helped them steal a few more runs. Duran, with his 93rd-percentile speed, has an uncanny ability to turn singles into doubles, doubles into triples, and score on balls in play he has no business scoring on.
Hopefully, Duran can find out what's troubling him in the batter's box soon. In 2024, his consistent bat and aggressive base running helped the Red Sox score early, often and easily — three words that certainly cannot be used to describe their run production this year. Boston seems to be going as Duran goes. When he gets on base, electric things can happen, he just needs to make more contact.