Jarren Duran, Masataka Yoshida and the Nature of Baseball Slumps

[Alex Mayes]

The month of June has not been exceptionally kind to either Jarren Duran or Masataka Yoshida. The Boston Red Sox, naturally, are worse off for it.

While Duran had a massive May, it seems like things have gone haywire for him again. His nine home runs last month pointed towards him finally figuring out a batting stance and leg kick combination that made sense for him. He was starting in the outfield on a daily basis and the thought was the consistent playing time was letting him finally find his groove offensively.

Yoshida had seen a bit of an uptick in playing time in the wake of Roman Anthony’s finger injury, but so far this month, he has been regulated to occasional pinch hitter duty while mostly being seen wandering around the dugout and taking dry swings as he sits on the bench. It’s gotten so bad that he’s essentially been replaced in the lineup by Mickey Gasper. That’s not totally a knock on Gasper (he’s played well since being promoted in May), but he’s a journeyman, Quadruple-A level of player who is already falling back to earth after his hot start. Before we dive into what may be going on for both outfielders, let’s take a look at their numbers so far in June.

Jarren Duran: .167/.167/.286, .194 wOBA, 12 wRC+ 42.9 K%, 0.0 BB%, -0.2 fWAR over 42 at bats

Masataka Yoshida: .111/.200/.111 .161 wOBA, -10 wRC+, 30.0 K%, 5.0 BB%, -0.3 fWAR over 20 at bats

Duran has looked like a shell of himself at the plate for the majority of the season. It’s not a mirage that he hasn’t walked once and is striking out almost half of the time this month. If we take a step back and look at his swing decisions as a whole over the season, we see that he’s chasing pitches out of the zone at a 35% clip, the most he’s done in his career. To go along with that, his chase contact percentage is down to 38.9% in 2026 from 44% in 2025. Likewise, his whiff percentage has shot up from 24.8% during his career year in 2024 to 35.9% this season.

To make matters worse, when he is making contact this month, he’s driving the ball into the ground almost 46 percent of the time; when he's hitting the ball into the air, 37.5% of those are infield fly balls. He’s making weak, ineffective contact the majority of the time when he’s at the plate and the team is suffering because of it. 

Due to the fact that he’s swinging at less and less first pitches, opposing pitchers are able to get a strike over on him and start him off down in the count. His pitch heatmap shows that most pitchers don’t even have to nibble around the zone to get Duran out. Instead, they are peppering the strike zone against him. Once he’s down, his approach at the plate shifts dramatically and he becomes the free-swinger that aggravated fans in 2021 and 2022 when he was new to the league. 

Meanwhile, Yoshida’s fall from grace has been long predicted and shouldn’t surprise any astute observer. Former manager Alex Cora arguably played Yoshida more than he should have, neither Chaim Bloom nor Craig Breslow have able to move his contract when it’s best for roster construction to do so, and interim manager Chad Tracy seems to have no desire to get Yoshida any real playing time on a regular basis since taking over the job.

Taking that same step back as we did with Duran, we see almost the exact opposite approach. He’s only chasing 28% of the time but he’s making contact on 74.4% of those chases. Even his 2026 whiff percentage is tied for a career low at 14.6%. So what is going on with him? In short, he’s getting nothing to hit and when he does make contact, it’s weak. His pitch heatmap is also the exact opposite from Duran’s. With Duran, we see a hitter who is struggling with pitches in the heart of the zone. With Yoshida, we see someone who is getting fed pitches high in the zone almost exclusively.

Yoshida's biggest issue seems to be that he just can’t barrel a baseball to save his life. He’s currently ranked in the sixth percentile for barrel percentage at 1.8%. There’s just nothing productive going on for him when he’s at the plate. He’s not impacting the ball in any meaningful way, and on the off chance he does manage to put something in play, his groundball percentage is right at 50%. Like Duran, he’s driving the ball directly into the ground for easy and weak outs. 

The question is how can Jarren Duran and Masataka Yoshida be fixed in 2026? More consistent playing time in the field? Duran has proven that’s not working. Exclusively hitting at designated hitter so they can study mechanics and make alterations in the cage between at-bats? Both have shown that doesn’t work. There’s no easy answer to the question anymore, as both Duran and Yoshida are costing the Red Sox valuable production as they attempt to navigate the rest of this season and beyond.

The alternatives are practically nonexistent while Anthony is down, so the Red Sox have little choice but to keep deploying this duo. Barring a turnaround from either, the offense figures to continue being a train wreck in Boston.

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