Monday Morning Brushback: Jarren Duran is controlled chaos

The Red Sox week in review dives into Jarren Duran, the team’s newfound kleptomania, and Walker Buehler.

Don’t look now, but the Red Sox are on a pretty nice run.

Maybe it doesn’t feel like it considering that a disappointing set against the Seattle Mariners got us off on the wrong foot to begin this past week, but Boston has gone 9-5 from their sweep-avoiding victory on the south side of Chicago a few weeks ago until now. A smashing win against the Cleveland Guardians on Sunday makes that run go down a lot smoother ahead of the off day and prior to the start of a series against the Toronto Blue Jays.

While I’d say that we’re still in the early stages of the season, a month’s worth of contests is also a fair enough of a sample size when looking at the league’s front runners. The Red Sox are probably not the top dog in the American League at this point in time, but I think we’re certainly a club that has put ourselves in the conversation. Again: it might not seem like that’s the case thus far because of some frustrating games (looking directly at that first game of Saturday’s doubleheader against the Guards), but we’ve still got one of the highest number of wins in the Junior Circuit heading into the new week.

That’s not nothin’, folks! The blueprint to success has been laid out over the course of April—and shit, even within this past week alone. We’ve seen a lineup that can hang with any offense on their best day, some pitchers such as Brayan Bello and another guy we’ll talk about later who have been making strides to improve the rotation, and a group that isn’t afraid to disrupt the flow of the game on the bases. Sorry to sound like a Silicon Valley tech bro on that third point, but it’s true.

I think this team is good, and I think we can expect them to continue to be in the mix. The expectations were high going into 2025—after about a month, we can keep ‘em there.

It’s Monday Morning Brushback time, y’all.

Oh Rio, Rio, Run Across The Rio Grande

Photo by Nick Cammett/Getty Images

What a weekend for Jarren Duran: seven hits across the two wins at The Jake (yeah, I’m deadnaming that park in Cleveland), three runs scored in the first victory and a rib eye in the second, and one triple that preceded one of the most rare plays in the sport: a daring and direct steal of home plate, one that a Boston player hadn’t accomplished since Jacoby Ellsbury dunked on that team from the Bronx back in 2009.

We can get into the nitty gritty of Duran’s hot stretch following a slow start on the field in a little bit, but can we take a second to simply appreciate that we’ve got a guy who can pull shit like this out of his back pocket? Jarren Duran is controlled chaos. Every team (again, besides those guys in the Bronx) should have some controlled chaos—a guy who can throw a bit of madness into a game at his own will. Any moment with him can be a “holy shit” moment. When Duran gets going, you’d be hard pressed to find a guy who’s head-and-shoulders more fun.

On a quick related note: that asshole in Cleveland who yelled at Duran on Sunday can go fuck himself.

But anyways, back to Super Serious Analysis—a staple of the Brushback, of course. In the last couple of weeks, Jarren Duran has really come back alive with the bat; he has not had consecutive hitless games since the last two games in Baltimore prior to Opening Day at Fenway. His 11-game hit streak sadly came to a close in game one of Saturday’s twin bill on the banks of Lake Erie, but he immediately got back on track in the last two games against Cleveland to help secure a series victory.

Even when Duran isn’t getting on base, it feels like he’s being cheated out of a knock here and there. His average exit velocity off the bat is actually up a few ticks so far compared to 2024 (90.8 MPH vs 92.9 MPH), which is good for the 89th percentile across all of baseball. He’s also squaring the ball up damn-near a third of the time (his 30.1% squared up rate, which basically calculates how much of a swing’s potential exit velo was able to be carried out in reality, is good for the 83rd percentile in baseball). Some would be hits that could’ve brought his slugging percentage up from its current mark of .400 even can be chalked up to buzzards luck.

But I come bringing good news about that, friends: baseball’s history has shown that some of those hard hit ball from Duran will eventually fall for more doubles and more controlled chaos. If he keeps up this type of process with the twig, good things will continue to come. While he might not put up the absurd numbers he put up last year, Duran’s presence should keep giving other teams headaches. That type of swing from a guy with wheels is dangerous—speed kills, baby.

Speaking of which….

Men of Steal

David Butler II-Imagn Images

Who are these baserunners, and what have they done to the Boston Red Sox?

For whatever reason, the Boston Red Sox have not been known to be a team that lights the basepaths on fire from year-to-year. I’m sure it’s easy enough to get guys from station to station when you play half of your games at a hitter’s park—you don’t want to run into outs, of course—but they’ve never really cemented themselves as a group with that reputation. The names and faces have changed, and there have been individual outliers (such as the two guys who most recently carried out a direct steal of home while wearing a Boston uniform), but the Red Sox have never really been a team that has been with synonymous with being aggressive on the bases.

And hey, this isn’t to say that 2025 will be the year that completely shatters that notion. All I’m saying is that at this pace, this would be the closest instance of that reputation changing.

The Red Sox are in the top five across the entire league in steals (34) and they’ve only been caught stealing on six occasions. Entering play on Sunday, Boston had averaged 1.10 steals per game, good for sixth in the league. Keep in mind that figure doesn’t account for the pair of swipes that the team had in Sunday’s finale against Cleveland. Seven Sox players already have multiple steals notched on their ledger (and Duran, Ceddanne Rafaela, and Trevor Story all have more than five steals a piece), while six players have sprint speeds tracked on Baseball Savant that are higher than the league median.

This is not just one guy completely dominating here—this group likes to run.

To put things in perspective, the Red Sox have not had 162 or more steals in a year—enough to constitute a mark of at least one steal per game—since 1914. Dude, 1914 was such a long time ago. We were still putting lead and asbestos in everything that we ate at that point. It’s been a long time since they’ve been running that wild.

The 2024 Sox did run well more than usual, as their 144 steals were enough for the seventh most in MLB last season. Even then, though, that represents 0.89 steals per game, and that team did it at a lower success rate than this 2025 group has done so far (76.5 SB% in ‘24 compared to 85% in ‘25). Smaller sample size, of course, but that’s still worth noting.

I’m not smart enough to sit here and tell you, dear reader, what specifically has changed with the philosophy since the start of 2024 other than “running fast good.” I don’t know if there’s a specific thing to look at that has given the Sox more of an edge on the ground game, if this is just a matter of the organization putting more of an emphasis on trying to steal now that the bags are a bit wider, or if it comes down to the simple fact that the roster has a ton of athleticism to spare.

All I know is that I love the aggressiveness. To steal the phrase from the prior section: give me more controlled chaos. Like, look at this play from Sunday and tell me that you aren’t excited to see our guys pull shit like this off. I don’t know if Instagram will let me embed this post correctly, because nothing on the internet can be simple anymore, but you can follow that link and see the magic for yourself.

The Red Sox shouldn’t be so stupid to run into needless outs, of course, but force the other team to make a play to stop you. Otherwise: keep on running. There’s a difference between aggressiveness and stupidity; Boston is leaning more towards the former.

Walker, Boston Red Sock

Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images

Walker Buehler’s Red Sox tenure didn’t start on the highest of notes. Frankly, if you were just going to look at the surface level stuff, you wouldn’t assume that sentiment has changed: after all, a 4.28 ERA and a 1.22 WHIP with 29 strikeouts isn’t exactly much to write home about.

But since his first two turns through the rotation, though, things have really begun to click for one of the organization’s newest starters. In his last four appearances, Buehler has registered a 2.59 ERA and a 1.07 WHIP with 22 punch-outs. Considering that 24.1 of his 33.2 innings hurled so far in 2025 have come in his last four outings, I think it’s fair to say that we can consider Buehler’s current season-long ERA with a grain of salt.

The good times were rolling this week: Walker held the Pale Hose to just one earned run across seven frames on Marathon Monday, while he logged another quality start against the Guardians in a pivotal win Saturday night. A three-run homer in the fourth sullied his otherwise outstanding start over the weekend (and hey, for what it’s worth: the Sox were already up 6-0 at the time).

After he coughed up some loud contact in his first pair of starts, Buehler has actually done a good job of limiting balls being hit on the screws, as his hard hit rate and average exit velocity metrics per Savant are up to the 87th and 86th percentile, respectively. He isn’t missing a ton of bats and thus isn’t racking up the K’s at an eye-popping rate, but he’s finding ways to get outs in an efficient manner.

I’m not professional hitter or coach, but I’d venture to guess that part of why it’s been difficult to square Buehler’s pitches up is simply because he throws so fucking many of them. He’s thrown six individual pitch types (his four seamer, cutter, sinker, sweeper, knuckle curve, and changeup for those keeping track at home) all on at least 50 occasions, creating a usage rate between that six pack that varies between roughly a quarter of the time and 10%.

What’s lovely about mixing in so many different pitches—outside of the very nature of being able to throw so many different pitches, because that’s just cool as hell—is that they can play off of each other effectively.

I mean, look at this heat map of how he’s deploying his arsenal (vs. PSG on Tuesday—come on you gunners):

That four seamer and sinker can play in the middle or in on righties, while that cutter can slice in on lefties. He can dot that sweeper and curve on the outer part of the plate against righties, while he can locate the change on a righty’s back foot. Vice versa for any hitter in the other box, by the way. North, south, east, and west: it’s tough to wire in on a pitcher when he’s able to mix up the pitches any way he and the team see fit.

Another interesting thing I noticed when looking at Walker’s first month in Boston reminds me of pitching coach’s Andrew Bailey’s north star when it comes to his philosophy: find what a guy does and throw more of it.

With that in mind, take a peek at how his pitch usage has evolved (so far, with the smaller sample size in mind) from 2024:

I know I said that his main pitch mix has fluctuated between approximately 25% and 10%, but I still tried to have that 28.9% marker of the heater from last year as a frame of reference for ya—that top grey line marks 40% use rate, the middle grey line is 20%, and the bottom grey line is, well, the bottom.

Long story short: Buehler’s changeup, sweeper, and cutter usage go brr, while the four-seam and (especially) the knuckle curve usage do not go brr.

Walker’s effectiveness with those pitches specifically (I know they represent five of the seven offerings he has, so it’s tough to say “specifically” in this instance, but you catch my drift) will be interesting to watch going forward. Buehler could be the poster boy of the “throw your good pitches more” theory if this all pans out.

For now, though, shout out to him killin’ it as of late.

Song of the Week: “What Was That” by Lorde

SHE’S BAAAAAAA-AAAAAAACK!!!!!!

Same time and same place next week, folks! Go Sox.