Red Sox center fielder Jarren Duran needed to be restrained during a wild 7th-inning meltdown

The Boston Red Sox had themselves a dreadful July where they went from the fourth-best record in the American League to falling out of realistic playoff hopes. And much of that was due to atrocious defending.

Well, August hasn’t treated the Red Sox much better thus far. All you had to do was look at the seventh inning center fielder Jarren Duran had against the Royals to see why.

Duran was involved heavily throughout the inning, which started with him losing a routine fly ball in the sun. Later in the inning, he tried to make a leaping grab at the wall. When he missed that attempt, he exchanged words with some fans seated behind the center-field wall. And then, when something finally went right for Duran (a diving grab), he still had to be restrained from engaging with the heckling Royals fans.

All that happened before the Red Sox even recorded a second out in the inning. And while the Red Sox managed to escape that inning with only two runs allowed, the Royals blew the game open in the eighth inning with six runs to make the score 13-3. Duran somehow remained in center field after all that.

No wonder Red Sox fans weren’t happy with how Duran handled himself there.