Caleb Durbin shows signs of progress as the Red Sox pull away from the Guardians

On Wednesday afternoon, a statistical low point for Caleb Durbin, who was on the bench again, the question posed to Craig Breslow was straightforward: Would it benefit the Red Sox and Durbin for him to go to the minors to figure out whatever is wrong?

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“We, the coaches, [interim manager Chad Tracy] are doing everything possible to get him to perform at the level that he did all season last year, that we know he is capable of. It’s going to turn,” the chief baseball officer said, not saying no. “But we’re constantly thinking about, where’s the best environment for that to happen? But I think it is premature in terms of making decisions.”

Not yet, then — and maybe not ever, if Durbin can keep this up.

He helped the Sox to a 9-1 win over the Guardians on Saturday with a 2-for-4, two-RBI effort, his latest glimpse of offensive life.

Over his past three games, Durbin is 5 for 12 with three doubles and four RBIs. That has raised his average from .163 to .182 and OPS from .479 to .521 — still ugly all around, but a rare tick in the right direction in what has been a miserable first season with the Sox.

“You need to have good results. You need to produce. You can feel as good as you want, but if you’re not producing, it doesn’t really mean much,” Durbin said, noting that he has felt good at the plate all year even with the hits not dropping.

“I’ve had good results in a two-day span before. It’s day-to-day. Just trying to continue to string it [together]. For me, I’ve got to string it for a long period of time.”

Durbin credited the recent mini-success to a shift in approach, trying to use the whole field instead of focusing so much on pulling the ball. The basic idea: If a pitch is on the inner half of the plate, go ahead and rip it to left field. But if it’s on the outer half, just stroke it to right.

He has short arms, so trying to pull a pitch that is outside is not going to work, he said. Keep it simple instead.

“I’m at my best when I’m not closing myself off to any part of the field,” he said.

When Durbin pulled a ball in the air against lefthander Parker Messick (five innings, one run), it turned into a game-tying sacrifice fly in the fourth inning. In the eighth, he doubled to right, providing a key insurance run in what at the moment was a tight game.

“He’s getting the ball up off the ground a little bit more,” Tracy said. “And he’s using the [opposite] side of the field, and he’s got a couple of big hits.”

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Durbin said: “It’s easy to say when the results are good, oh, yeah it’s better. But I think even on your outs, what do your outs look like?”

The Red Sox (24-33) totaled six runs — three on Jarren Duran’s ninth home run of the season — in the ninth inning to turn it into a blowout.

When they weren’t scoring early, righthander Sonny Gray made that OK. He held the Guardians (34-26) to one run in six innings, getting better late.

Back-to-back doubles from Travis Bazzana and José Ramírez to open the first inning served as an early warning to Gray that he needed to make a change, especially against the lefthanded hitters.

“Everything I am throwing is coming [inside] toward them, and you could tell that they had an early hip and wanted to yank and pull,” he said. “So being able to then make the adjustment of recognizing that and being able to execute that adjustment was a fun one.”

Gray loves to “attack” lefties inside, catcher Connor Wong explained. So the switch was simple: use the other side of the plate.

“Sonny was awesome,” Tracy said.

In the sixth, Tracy had double-barreled action in the bullpen: lefthander Danny Coulombe and righthander Tyron Guerrero. Gray took care of it, though, striking out Kyle Manzardo, Stuart Fairchild, and Daniel Schneemann — all swinging, all at breaking balls.

“He saved the best for the last inning,” Tracy.

Wong had the go-ahead-for-good hit in the sixth inning, but it wasn’t as satisfying a moment as he wanted. Umpires initially deemed his fly ball to left a home run — which would have been his first since Sept. 8, 2024.

After he rounded the bases, put on the Wally head, and took the celebratory stroll through the dugout, a crew-chief review deemed it an RBI double. MLB said a replay official in New York “definitively determined” the ball bounced off the top of the wall, on the yellow line, before coming back onto the field.

“I still think it’s a homer,” Wong said. “I wish I could challenge it myself. But it is what it is. We got the win.”

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