Jarren Duran’s breakthrough season is officially over.
The soon-to-be 27-year-old outfielder will undergo season-ending surgery on his sprained left big toe, Red Sox manager Alex Cora confirmed prior to Tuesday’s game. Duran is scheduled to have the surgery on Wednesday, and Cora said while the timing of the injury is unfortunate, he expects Duran will be ready to return by the start of spring training.
“He had a good season, he did well for us, this is a guy we’re counting on in the future and he’ll be ok,” Cora said.
Duran suffered the injury last Sunday while scaling a wall at Yankee Stadium attempting to track down a home run. He came out with what was initially described as a bruised toe, but subsequent evaluations confirmed Duran had suffered a bad case of turf toe, a type of sprain that occurs when the big toe is bent back too far or too forcefully.
Cora said Duran’s injury is similar to the one Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes dealt with during Super Bowl LV against Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Despite his season’s abrupt end, this year has been an unqualified success for Duran, who broke out as one of Boston’s best all-around players after two failed call-ups in 2021 and 2022. Duran hit .295 with eight home runs, 40 RBI and 24 stolen bases in 102 games, posting career-highs in on-base percentage (.346), slugging percentage (.482), doubles (34) and runs scored (46) as well.
His 2.2 wins above replacement mark also ranks eighth on the team and second among Red Sox outfielders behind only Alex Verdugo (3.5).
“It was a really good year,” Cora said. “The on-base percentage, the slugging percentage, stolen bases, got a little better defensively. Went through the up and downs, right? He was hot, he struggled, he had a good season, a real good season.”
Following the injury the Red Sox called up Triple-A outfielder Wilyer Abreu, who subsequently went 6 for 17 (.353) with a home run and two doubles in his first five MLB games. The club has also since called up fellow outfield prospect Ceddanne Rafaela, who got the nod after Abreu was placed on the paternity leave list Monday.
With rosters set to expand to 28 on Friday one or both of those players could stick with the big league club for the rest of the season, though Cora wouldn’t commit to either for now.
“We’ll see what we do in the upcoming days, whoever stays here or whatever we decide, they’ll play,” Cora said.
Monday marked a low point in the Red Sox season, as Alex Cora left recent Triple-A call-up Kyle Barraclough in even as he got hammered for 10 runs over 4.1 ugly innings. Tuesday Cora reiterated that he stuck with Barraclough because he had no other relievers available and offered further explanation for how that happened in the first place.
Cora explained that having such a short bullpen was less a product of Boston’s pitching depth and more the result of starting pitchers not going deep enough into games. The Red Sox are nearing the end of a stretch of 16 straight games without an off day, and over their last nine games entering Tuesday only one Red Sox starter had pitched six innings or more: Brayan Bello, who went seven innings during last week’s 17-1 blowout of Houston.
With each game a starter doesn’t go deep, the Red Sox need to rely on more arms to pitch more innings. That’s manageable if it happens every now and then, but when it’s every day you start getting a domino effect, and eventually the result is a mess like Monday, where Cora has no choice but to throw one of his pitchers to the wolves.
“It’s not easy, because you’re trying to win and this is a team that we’re chasing, but yesterday at that point that’s what we needed to do,” Cora said. “We had two plans yesterday, it was (Chris) Sale-Barraclough-(Chris) Martin-(Kenley) Jansen, or it was Sale-Barraclough, and that’s it. It didn’t happen the way we wanted to so we needed to do it that way.”
Asked if he thought the front office did enough to bolster the roster at the trade deadline, Cora said he felt that with Sale, Garrett Whitlock and Tanner Houck all returning from the injured list they would be fine. A big part of the problem is they haven’t been able to give them length, but the Red Sox also have a number of other pitchers who have also spent time on the injured list, so the club has to be mindful not to put anyone’s long-term health at risk.
“We bet on these guys to come in and do their job, and we have to be careful with Whitlock, we have to be careful with Sale, we have to be careful with Houck, and (John) Schreiber, people forget about that one, we push him in Seattle for two innings and then we have to stay away from him for a little bit,” Cora said. “This is where we are, I think we have a good team, everybody says it, but we just have to be better in certain aspects and I think now it’s about the rotation giving us a little bit more.”
After a summer spent rehabbing following right elbow surgery in May, right-hander Zack Kelly is nearing a return to the mound and is expected to begin a rehab assignment in the lower minors later this week. Kelly is expected to first pitch for High-A Greenville before making a couple of appearances for Low-A Salem, which is located a short drive from Kelly’s hometown of Daleville, Virginia.
In addition, Cora said right-hander Corey Kluber (right shoulder inflammation) is also scheduled to throw a bullpen this week. After that Kluber will face live hitters and most likely begin a rehab assignment as well.
This time last month the Los Angeles Angels defied convention and common sense by buying at the trade deadline in hopes of making one last push for a playoff spot before Shohei Ohtani’s impending free agency. Since then they have gone 7-18 in the month of August, and on Tuesday essentially gave up on the season by placing five prominent big leaguers on outright waivers, including a starting pitcher they just gave up two top prospects to acquire.
According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the Angels placed starting pitcher Lucas Giolito, relievers Matt Moore and Reynaldo Lopez and outfielders Hunter Renfroe and Randal Grichuk on waivers. They can be claimed by any team and would be eligible for their new club’s postseason roster.
For the Angels the move is little more than a salary dump. All five players are due to become free agents, so by cutting bait now the club can save a month’s worth of salaries and potentially also dip below the luxury tax threshold. The players are likely to draw strong interest, particularly from fringe playoff contenders who could use a little extra boost.
Assuming multiple teams make a claim, who gets the player will be determined by reverse order of the standings. As of Tuesday the Red Sox stood 18th in waiver priority with a small handful of other playoff hopefuls ahead of them, so it’s no guarantee any of the ex-Angels will make it to Boston even if the Red Sox place a claim.
Still, you don’t see players like these become available this late in the season too often, and it’s not hard to see how a starter like Giolito or one of the two relievers could make a difference for Boston’s beleaguered pitching staff.