Duran's defense hitting the mark

This story was excerpted from Ian Browne’s Red Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Moments after making the best catch of his career a few days ago on Sunday Night Baseball against the Yankees, Red Sox center fielder Jarren Duran excitedly sought out the coach who has worked with him tirelessly on his defense since the first day of Spring Training.

“Did you see it?” Duran hollered to Kyle Hudson, who is in his first season as the first base coach and outfield/baserunning instructor for the Red Sox.

Duran wasn’t referring simply to the highlight-reel play, in which the center fielder covered 89 feet in 5.3 seconds and made a contorted basket catch just as he was about to run into the side of the bullpen wall in right-center at Fenway Park.

What Duran was yelling about was a subtlety he had worked on for weeks with Hudson: The art of taking his eyes off a flyball and just sprinting to the spot.

The catch on Anthony Rizzo was the first time he was able to do it.

For someone who was an infielder for his whole life until the Red Sox converted him to an outfielder early in his time in the farm system in 2018, the art of not looking at a flyball you are trying to catch is harder than it sounds.

“It’s so hard,” Duran said. “Going from the infield, where you never really take your head off the ball because if you're taking your head off the ball, you're probably going too far when it's the outfielder’s ball. We talked about it, like, ‘What do I think will get me to the next step of being a [better] outfielder from where I'm building?'

“We both were like, ‘Yeah, probably learning to take my head off the ball and to be more comfortable, like, not looking at it the whole time.’ So we just started working on drills and just going from there and just building on it.”

To Duran, that play was the culmination of hours of work with his coach.

“Yeah, I definitely was excited not just for making the play, but from the work that you put in and to make something like that happen,” Duran said. “You’re just super excited to see it unfold in front of your eyes.”

Aside from Duran, nobody was happier than Hudson.

“The best guys who are really comfortable reading the ball and taking their eyes away from it get to a spot like [Kevin] Kiermaier, those guys have done it their entire life,” Hudson said. “He's done it for four or five years since he made that transition. He's going to continue to get more comfortable. We’re going to continue to see him just kind of develop.”

In Hudson, Duran feels he has a kindred spirit.

“Huddy is the man,” Duran said. “I knew that we were going to have a really good relationship when he called me in the offseason and he texted in the offseason about doing stuff to improve so I knew he was really invested in me and I was like, ‘I'm all for that. Like, whatever you want to do to help me get better. I'm all in.”’

That also includes baserunning. Duran is one of the speediest players in the game, as evidenced by the numerous singles he has turned into doubles this season. But the next big step is perfecting his jumps for stolen-base attempts. Duran is 11-for-12 in steals this season, but Hudson thinks he has room to become even more dangerous in that facet of his game.

“He's got a pretty good IQ in terms of pitches to run on and all that. I don't think he’s [advanced] to looking at some of the stuff that I pay attention to, or pick out on the pitchers,” Hudson said. “We’re still trying to make those adjustments in game and trying to get him to see what I'm seeing and all that.

"He's done it a couple of times. He steals some bases and runs the bases on pure speed and athleticism a lot of the time. But the next progression in that is to really pick up on some of these keys and some of these tells that these pitchers get.”