The Red Sox had a night to forget on Friday, getting blown out in historic fashion by the Blue Jays at Fenway Park. And perhaps no Red Sox player had a more forgettable night than center fielder Jarren Duran.
The speedy Duran was seemingly stuck in neutral on a rare inside-the-park grand slam off the bat of Toronto's Raimel Tapia in the third inning.
First, Duran appeared to lose the ball in the lights, an unfortunate but not completely unheard of mishap.
But, bizarrely, Duran did not even attempt to chase down the ball after it landed on the warning track in deep center field, essentially conceding the Little League home run to Tapia.
Left fielder Alex Verdugo ranged over to gather the loose ball, and, after the game, Duran explained that it looked like Verdugo would get to it before he did, so why risk a potential collision or other miscue:
“I mean, [Verdugo] was right there already. Obviously, I should have taken a step or two, but he was already going to beat me to the ball, so I just didn’t want to get in his way," Duran said. "What if I sprinted to it and collided with him or something like that? But, next time I know to take one or two steps, but he was already going to beat me to the ball.”
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The gaffe allowed the Blue Jays to put the game out of reach for good, extending their lead 6-0 lead to 10-0. They would score a whopping 18 additional runs, marking the most runs ever allowed in a game by the Red Sox. So, in total, Duran's four-run blunder was only a fraction of the total damage Toronto inflicted on this night.
But Duran's explanation did little to quell critics on social media, many of which thought Duran was flat-out dogging it. Some even used the blunder to dredge up Duran's apparent vaccine hesitancy, which sidelined him for a recent three-game series in Toronto owing to Canada's vaccine protocols.
Here's what some were saying about the episode on Twitter:
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