The Red Sox have had a hard time scoring recently, and Jarren Duran’s struggles have been among the reasons why. Entering Sunday the outfielder was batting .205 over the past two weeks, a stretch where he’s primarily batted third.
Fortunately, as manager Alex Cora often says, speed doesn’t slump.
Duran broke out in a big way Sunday, hitting a three-run inside-the-park home run to help power the Red Sox to a 5-2 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was the first inside-the-parker of his big league career and helped the Red Sox avoid what would have been a disappointing three-game sweep at home.
Overall Duran reached base all four times he came to the plate, going 2 for 2 with a double and the homer along with two walks.
“We needed that,” Cora said. “I think offensively the last week has been a grind, some guys slumping, missing (Wilyer Abreu), so a big swing there, the ball got in the corner and then he did his thing.”
With two men on and the game tied at 1-1 in the bottom of the fifth, Duran roped a hard line drive into the right-center gap, which rolled into the triangle between center fielder Oneil Cruz and right fielder Alexander Canario. The two struggled to corral the ball, which bounced around in the corner, and by the time Cruz got the ball into the infield Duran was well on his way home.
Duran beat the throw by so much that he was able to slow down as he crossed the plate standing up, celebrating arguably the only speed-related in-game accomplishment that previously eluded him in his career.
“I was just happy I didn’t have to slide after all, Narvy was giving me the slide and I was like this is going to be more of a fall than a slide, then I saw the catcher vacate and I’m like, thank you, I’m going in standing up,” Duran said. “I feel like we’ve been hitting the ball so hard at people and just lining out and not getting lucky, so I let out a bunch of energy seeing that we caught a break a little bit right there.”
The home run came after the Pirates initially took the lead on a wild pitch by Lucas Giolito in the fourth, and after the Red Sox initially rallied in the fifth to tie the score. Romy Gonzalez reached on a leadoff error by the second baseman, Carlos Narvaez hit a ground-rule double to put men at second and third with one out, and Roman Anthony drove in Gonzalez on a groundout to make it 1-1.
Alex Bregman was then hit by a pitch to put two men on again for Duran, who lined Pirates starter Mitch Keller’s first-pitch fastball to the gap for Boston’s second inside-the-park homer of the season.
The first came courtesy of Abreu, who rounded the bases on June 30 against the Cincinnati Reds. According to the club 2025 is now the first season with multiple inside-the-park homers since 1998, when Darren Lewis and Nomar Garciaparra both accomplished the feat.
Cora said afterwards that the energy in the ballpark shifted after the homer, and Duran said that while he’d never given much thought to hitting an inside-the-parker, he and the whole team were fired up afterwards.
“I feel like it’s such a rarity that it’s kind of special for everybody,” Duran said.
While the bats finally got going, Giolito made sure he held up his end of the bargain.
The Red Sox starter had another strong outing, allowing one run over six innings of work. Giolito’s command wasn’t dialed in — he walked five batters, including three in a row plus a wild pitch to score a run in the fourth — but he limited the Pirates to just three hits while striking out six.
Giolito said he got totally out of sync in the fourth but was able to recover, and he knew after Duran’s homer that he couldn’t let the Pirates back into the game.
“It really fired me up,” Giolito said. “I told myself after that, OK, it’s go time now, they don’t get anything else.”
It was Giolito’s 14th quality start in 22 outings this season, and marked his sixth straight start at Fenway Park in which he’s allowed one or fewer runs over six innings of work.
“I just love pitching here, feeling the energy from the crowd and the magic of Fenway in general, I think every guy on the roster would say something similar,” Giolito said. “There’s something special about playing games at Fenway Park, especially in the position we’re in in a playoff race, it’s a lot of fun.”
The Red Sox extended their lead in the sixth on an RBI infield single by Ceddanne Rafaela, and while the Pirates were able to get a run back in the seventh on a solo shot by Canario off Justin Slaten, they couldn’t get any closer. Pittsburgh threatened in the eighth when they loaded the bases against Garrett Whitlock, but the Red Sox righty struck out Canario to end the inning.
From there it was Aroldis Chapman’s game, and the All-Star closer locked down his former club in the ninth for his 27th save of the season.
While the Red Sox lost the series, they’ll go into the new week no worse than 1.5 games back of the Yankees for the top American League Wild Card spot and 3.5 games back of the Blue Jays for first in the AL East standings.
Now the calendar turns to September, and next up for the Red Sox will be a three-game series at home against the Cleveland Guardians.
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