Duran starts on bench Thursday afternoon

The homer was his 13th, so power production hasn’t really been his issue. However, Duran came into this one hitless in his previous four games. It was his first multihit game since June 16 and his first time reaching base safely three times in a game since May 30. His OBP is sitting at .259, compared to .346, .342 and .332 the previous three years.

This is the third straight game against a left-hander that Duran has sat out. The 29-year-old is hitting .216/.284/.297 in 81 plate appearances against lefties this season with a 27.2 percent strikeout rate. Nate Eaton will start in left field and bat seventh while Romy Gonzalez will be the designated hitter and bat fifth.

The Red Sox blew a masterful performance from Sonny Gray by giving up two runs in the ninth and then gave up two more on Wilyer Abreu’s second mistake in two innings in the 10th. However, the offense came through against Fernando Cruz in the bottom of the 10th. Anthony Siegler singled even after taking an automatic strike at the beginning of his at-bat, and pinch-hitter Masataka Yoshida followed with a double that gave him just his second RBI of the month. Tseng-Che Cheng then tied the game with a sac fly, and Duran followed with a liner to right with no one home, as the Yankees had gone to a two-man outfield. It was Duran’s second at-bat off the bench, as he didn’t start against lefty Carlos Rodón. He’s hitting just .156/.181/.244 with 33 strikeouts this month.

It makes sense after Eaton went 3-for-4 with two doubles, two runs scored, and two RBI in a win on Tuesday. The Red Sox will use that to give Jarren Duran a day off and put Connor Wong at designated hitter. While Duran has 12 home runs and 11 steals in 72 games this season, he’s also slashing just .199/.258/.366 and has just a 67 wRC+.

That was Duran’s 12th home run and 37th RBI of the season in what has been a rough year for the 29-year-old. Duran is hitting just .214/.270/.398 on the season and has gone 10-for-51 (1.96) with a 19/0 K/BB ratio since June 1st. The 12 home runs and 11 steals make it tough to drop him in most fantasy leagues, but he’s not somebody you need to hold onto in really shallow formats.

Duran provided some additional breathing room for Red Sox closer Aroldis Chapman by crushing a no-doubter into the right-field seats at Fenway Park against Rangers reliever Peyton Gray in the top of the ninth inning. It was his 11th big fly of the season and first time leaving the yard in nine games dating back to May 31.

Gasper finds himself at DH and atop Boston’s lineup after going 1-for-5 with a run scored during the club’s 10-run outburst during Friday’s series opener at Fenway Park. The unheralded 30-year-old backstop has hit .272/.326/.346 with zero homers and five RBI in 90 plate appearances since coming up from Triple-A Worcester in mid-May. He can be safely ignored in most fantasy leagues. His presence atop the lineup is a more significant hit to Jarren Duran’s immediate fantasy appeal than anything else. It also seems to render Masataka Yoshida completely irrelevant as a bench bat.

It’s Gasper’s first leadoff appearance all year, though he did hit in the two-hole at times in May. Gasper is batting .154/.241/.231 in 29 June plate appearances, so it’s not like he’s red hot either. Jarren Duran has been dropped to fifth in the lineup as a result of this shakeup.

Duran put Boston ahead early with a run-scoring single to center field with two outs in the third inning. It was his lone hit in four at-bats out of the leadoff spot. The 29-year-old outfielder is hitting just .138 (4-for-29) with one RBI and one steal in seven games since the start of June. Not great. The cold spell comes on the heels of a hot stretch where he went deep six times in 11 games.

Duran’s homer was his 10th of the year and the sixth in his past 11 games. He won’t stay quite this hot for long, as his recent streak has coincided with a mid-30s strikeout percentage and a BABIP north of .450. Still, it’s encouraging to see after an offseason of trade rumors and a slow start to 2026. Duran started and hit leadoff in every May game the Red Sox played, a role that suited him well in his career year back in 2024.