{"id":837,"date":"2026-05-21T06:03:50","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T06:03:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=837"},"modified":"2026-05-21T06:03:50","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T06:03:50","slug":"jarren-durans-go-ahead-homer-in-seventh-inning-leads-to-red-sox-third-straight-win-over-the-royals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=837","title":{"rendered":"Jarren Duran\u2019s go-ahead homer in seventh inning leads to Red Sox\u2019 third straight win over the Royals"},"content":{"rendered":"<article>\n<div>\n<p><span>KANSAS CITY, Mo. \u2014 At his best, Jarren Duran creates havoc, changing games like few others in baseball. For most of the first seven weeks of the 2026 season, however, that capability remained dormant.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=835\">Trump\u2019s false claims about the 2020 election are casting a shadow over Georgia\u2019s GOP runoffs<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cIt hasn\u2019t been the strongest showing this year,\u201d Duran conceded.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But on Wednesday, for the second straight night, he dominated a game against the Royals, making a jaw-dropping defensive play and later delivering a two-run, seventh-inning homer that turned a deficit into a 4-3 victory as the Red Sox completed a three-game series sweep.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span>With the Sox down, 3-2, and Carlos Narv\u00e1ez on first after a leadoff single, Duran continued a recent pattern of spitting on pitches out of the strike zone. He negotiated a 3-to-1 count, then attacked a 99 m.p.h. Steven Cruz fastball on the outer half of the plate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Cavernous Kauffman Stadium rarely permits opposite-field homers to lefties, but Duran\u2019s liner carried just over the fence and into the Red Sox bullpen. It was Duran\u2019s sixth homer of the year, his fifth with men on base.<\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><span>Get Starting Point<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.<\/span><\/div>\n<div>\n<div><label>Enter Email<\/label><\/p>\n<div><button>Sign Up<\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>\u201cIt\u2019s always fun to hit a homer, especially oppo, because it was into our bullpen, too,\u201d said Duran. \u201cI got to see them jumping around for me, [which] probably what made my night.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<div><span>Related<span>: <\/span><\/span>Garrett Crochet rides out ups and downs of throwing program on way back to top of Red Sox rotation<\/div>\n<p><span>Duran made the night of many teammates. He finished 2 for 5 with the homer and a triple, punctuating a series in which he went 5 for 10 with 4 walks, 2 homers, 1 double, 1 triple, and 1 stolen base. Across three games, he also raced around left field like the Tasmanian Devil.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In the third inning of a 2-1 game, Maikel Franco sliced a ball down the left-field line. Duran, shaded to left-center, measured approximately 25 strides and perfectly timed a leap, crashing into and reaching above the padded wall to make a catch against the metal fence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cI\u2019m willing to get hurt to make a play for my pitchers,\u201d Duran said.<\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Stop us if you&#8217;ve heard this before&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Jarren Duran with a HIGHLIGHT REEL catch \ud83d\udc40\ud83d\udd25 pic.twitter.com\/vDK08a5bXV<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NESN (@NESN) May 21, 2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>\u201cI don\u2019t know how he caught [it],\u201d marveled Sox starter Connelly Early. \u201cHe\u2019s a freak athlete.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=833\">Follow live updates on the Trump administration<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span>Duran\u2019s late homer was the decisive note in a back-and-forth contest. The Royals took a first-inning lead against Early when Salvador Perez somehow pulled his hands inside to get to a well-located, 94 m.p.h. fastball for a solo homer. The blast was the 311th of Perez\u2019s illustrious career, a mark that ranks second in franchise history to Hall of Famer George Brett (317).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The visitors responded immediately against former Red Sox starter Michael Wacha. Willson Contreras tripled to lead off the second, and later scored on an RBI single by Nick Sogard to tie the game, 1-1. The Sox nearly broke the game open, loading the bases with no outs, but managed just one more run on a double play grounder by Narv\u00e1ez on which Royals third baseman Maikel Garcia made a spectacular play.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Early thus had the slimmest of margins for error with the Sox ahead, 2-1. But in the fifth, he erred twice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The lefthander issued a leadoff walk \u2014 his first free pass of the game \u2014 to Starling Marte. Then, against Elias D\u00edaz, Early went to a first-pitch sinker in search of a double play. The 91 m.p.h. offering stayed over the plate and D\u00edaz unloaded, the resulting collision sending the ball on a 405-foot journey that put the Royals ahead, 3-2. <\/span><\/p>\n<div><span>Related<span>: <\/span><\/span>For Red Sox coach Chad Epperson, Tuesday was a one-of-a-kind family reunion<\/div>\n<p><span>For Early, the two homers continued to expose his foremost vulnerability. He\u2019s allowed nine long balls over his last seven starts (40 innings). Still, with another quality start (6 innings, 3 runs, 1 walk, 5 strikeouts), Early continued to show the mix and moxie of a reliable starter while improving to 4-2 with a 3.33 ERA in 10 outings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cOther than [the pitch to Diaz], he was in complete control,\u201d interim manager Chad Tracy said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The Red Sox countered two innings later with Duran\u2019s two-run blast.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The Boston bullpen was shorthanded, with both Garrett Whitlock and Justin Slaten unavailable after working the prior two games. But Greg Weissert delivered four critical outs for his first hold in nearly six weeks, including an inning-ending strikeout of Bobby Witt Jr. to strand the tying run in the seventh, and Jovani Mor\u00e1n added an inning-ending punchout of Jac Caglianone in the eighth.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Aroldis Chapman followed with an adventurous but ultimately scoreless ninth to convert his 27th straight save opportunity dating to last July. The bullpen finished the series with 10 scoreless innings, a throughline across the three-game sweep.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=831\">Republicans expected to abandon $1b security proposal for White House and Trump\u2019s ballroom<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span>Another throughline? Duran\u2019s dynamism.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cIf he starts going,\u201d Tracy said, \u201cit\u2019s no secret that\u2019s going to help us go.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is no game to be played Thursday after the series sweep, and the Red Sox will open a six-game homestand Friday with the first of three vs. the Twins at Fenway Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Jarren Duran\u2019s go-ahead homer in seventh inning leads to Red Sox\u2019 third straight win over the Royals - Boston Relocation Insider<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=837\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jarren Duran\u2019s go-ahead homer in seventh inning leads to Red Sox\u2019 third straight win over the Royals - 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