The Boston Red Sox entered the 2026 season with more questions than answers in their lineup, relying on young players like Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer, and Wilyer Abreu to take a step forward, and veterans like Jarren Duran to return to form after down seasons in 2025. Instead, the young pieces haven't taken the step forward that was expected, and Duran is in the midst of the worst year of his career. As a result, Boston has one of the worst offenses in baseball. If the Red Sox have any hope of turning things around at the plate, they'll need their 29-year-old spark plug to get going. 

Since his career year in 2024, Duran has struggled to replicate the success at the plate that saw him finish seventh in American League MVP voting. While he saw a slight dip in production in 2025, it was nothing compared to the struggles he has seen in 2026, when he has been one of the worst hitters in the sport. 

Through 72 games in 2026, Duran is hitting just .199/.258/.366, ranking among the four worst qualified hitters in both batting average and on-base percentage. His weighted runs created+ of 67 shows he has been 33 percent worse than the league average this year and is the fourth-lowest mark among 153 qualified hitters. 

Without a true power hitter in the heart of the order, Duran's ability to reach base and use his 93rd-percentile sprint speed to create chaos on the base paths is key to the Red Sox' offense scoring runs. It's no coincidence that the Red Sox offense's best month of production coincided with a great month from Duran. 

In May, Duran hit .261/.331/.548/.879 with nine home runs and 22 RBI, while the Boston offense as a whole ranked top 10 in batting average (.265, 2nd), on-base percentage (.330, 6th), and slugging percentage (.406, 9th). While they were just outside the top 10 in weighted runs created+ (101, 11th). 

However, that month has proven to be an outlier for both Duran and the Red Sox offense as a whole, as the 29-year-old is hitting just .143/.175/.247/.422, his wRC+ of seven is comfortably the lowest among 170 qualified hitters in the month. As a result of his struggles, interim manager Chad Tracy dropped Duran to fifth in the lineup after leading off for much of his tenure. 

Similarly, the Red Sox offense has fallen back into the doldrums of the league, ranking in the bottom 10 in batting average (.234, 24th), on-base percentage (.291, 27th), slugging percentage (.408, 22nd), and runs scored (76, T-25th).

Duran's struggles came to a head in Wednesday afternoon's series finale in Colorado, where Tracy chose to bench his left fielder amid a 1-for-20 stretch spanning the duration of Boston's six-game West Coast trip to Seattle and Colorado. Tracy told Tim Healey of the Boston Globe he "just needed to give him a break." 

Duran is back in the lineup, batting fifth and playing left field as the Red Sox return home to welcome the New York Yankees to Fenway Park for a four-game set that gets underway on Thursday night. Connelly Early (6-5, 3.64 ERA) will get the start for Boston opposite Cam Schlittler (8-3, 1.71 ERA) for New York. First pitch set for 7:10 p.m. ET. 

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