Jarren Duran loves the Green Monster. And it's not just the Wally head.
What Duran really loves is hitting baseballs off the Green Monster. He peppers the Monster. And that's what makes him the perfect Red Sox leadoff man.
For 81 games a year, Duran gets to take aim at one of the most famous ballpark quirks in the world. And no one does it better than him.
"I do love the Green Monster," Duran said with a laugh last week during a visit to MLB headquarters in New York. "It's definitely become my best friend as of recently. We're having a pretty good relationship so far."
You hear all the time about hitters being "built for their ballpark." Any time the Yankees sign a lefty slugger, for example, like Jason Giambi or Hideki Matsui or Curtis Granderson, there's inevitably talk of how they'll love hitting to the short porch at Yankee Stadium.
But as Duran and the Red Sox welcome the Yankees to Fenway Park this weekend, know that Duran is built for his ballpark, too, but in a different way. Duran is built for Fenway not because it's easy for him to yank home runs to right field there, but because he is a great opposite-field hitter at a ballpark featuring a unique opposite-field construction for left-handed hitters.
At most stadiums, pulling the ball is the easiest way to slug. There are way more pull-power hitters than there are opposite-field power hitters. But that's not Duran's style.
"Everybody always tells me, 'Just pull the ball,' and I'm like, 'I'm not a pull hitter,'" Duran sighed. "I see how much shorter it is. I'm like, 'I wish I could just pull the ball over there.' But, of course, I use the biggest part of the field, the opposite side of the field."
Duran's opposite-field raking is what made him a breakout All-Star last year. And at Fenway Park, the opposite side of the field isn't the biggest part of the field. It's just the highest part of the field. That actually plays into Duran's hands.
Who needs someone to crush balls over the Green Monster when you have someone who smokes everything off the Green Monster? Especially when that someone is a dynamic baserunner like Duran, who never hesitates to turn on the jets and take the extra base as soon as he sees that a ball off his bat is earmarked for the high wall in left field.
Duran is an extra-base hit machine -- specifically, a doubles and triples machine. He leads all hitters with 87 doubles and triples since the start of last season. He led the Majors last year with 62, and he's tied for the MLB lead again this year with 25.
Most 2B + 3B since 2024
- 1. Jarren Duran: 87
- 2. Bobby Witt Jr.: 81
- 3. Shohei Ohtani: 61
- 4-T. Freddie Freeman: 59
- 4-T. Elly De La Cruz: 59
A huge chunk of those doubles and triples are banged off the Monster -- 26 of them in total. That's an insane amount of Green Monster wall balls.
No other Red Sox player has even come close to Duran's total of Monster balls over the last two seasons. Rafael Devers is good at using the Green Monster, too, and Alex Bregman has shown a knack for it in his first season in Boston -- he's used to pulling balls toward a short, high wall in left field after hitting to the Crawford Boxes for years as an Astro. But neither do it nearly to the degree that Duran does.
And it's not just Red Sox. Since 2024, Duran has hit the most balls to the wall of any Major League player, according to Statcast's tracking data -- more than sluggers Juan Soto, Marcell Ozuna, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Aaron Judge. (Reminder, that's to the wall, not over the wall.)
And Duran has easily the most hits off the wall of any big leaguer at their own ballpark, ahead of Devers, Vlad Jr., Witt and Oneil Cruz.
The bottom line is this: When Duran hits the ball in the air to left field at Fenway, as long as it reaches the wall, he's going to be standing on second base at least. That's true no matter how well the outfielder manages to play the wall … which, at Fenway, is notoriously difficult.
"For me, it's nice because [as soon as I hit it the opposite way] I'm like, 'Oh, hopefully I get a double out of this,'" Duran said. "Sometimes you think, 'If I hit it too hard, and it kicks right back to them, am I going to be able to get a double?' But I'm always just trying to push it anyway. Every time I hit the ball that way -- even if I feel like I mishit it sometimes -- I'm like, 'Oh, it's just going to go off the Monster and hopefully I get a double here.'"
But it's not like he's just a Fenway Park merchant. Duran gets plenty of extra-base hits on the road, too. He's just a different hitter at Fenway.
"At Fenway, if I hit it off the Monster, it's probably not gonna be a triple," Duran said. "But when I hit at Fenway, I feel like I'm obviously trying to get a double, and then I can read if the outfielder plays it off the wall well or not to maybe get a triple. Whereas [only] if I hit it in the right spot at other stadiums, in the gap, I might be able to get a triple."
On the road, Duran can stretch a gapper into a double or triple if he splits the outfield defense. That's why so many of his extra-base hits away from Boston are toward center field or down the line. At home, all he has to do is lift the ball in the air to left with a little juice, and the Green Monster will take care of the rest.
"It plays into my game," Duran said, "so it always works out for me."