Jhoan

Duran

The flame-throwing 27-year-old had been projected by MLBTradeRumors.com to earn $3.7 million in his first season of arbitration eligibility. Duran had a shaky season by his standards in 2024, posting a career-worst 3.64 ERA to go along with a 1.16 WHIP and a 66/15 K/BB ratio across 54 1/3 frames. With Griffin Jax nipping at his heels in the Twins’ bullpen, he’ll need to start the 2025 season off strong or he could be in danger of losing his grip on the ninth inning gig.

Jhoan Duran pitched a scoreless eighth inning for the Twins and was tasked with getting a two-inning save, but he allowed a double to Jose Ramirez and, after striking out Josh Naylor, issued a walk to bring the tying run to the plate, so Rocco Baldelli brought in Jax. The 29-year-old would allow an infield single but get a strikeout and a groundout to secure the win and his ninth save of the season.

This was not easy for Duran who’s been a bit more mortal than we’re used to seeing lately. The first two he faced reached before Nolan Schanuel hit an RBI single and stole second base to put the tying runs in scoring position. Duran dug deep to get out of the inning, but this is now four times Duran has let at least one run scored over his last eight appearances. Fantasy managers nor the Twins can afford that type of stress this time of year.

Duran was excellent Thursday with a pair of strikeouts and throwing 10-of-12 pitches for strikes. The right-hander is now up to 22 saves on the season, and the scoreless frame lowers his ERA to 3.45. Duran will occasionally have some blips where his command fails him, but there aren’t many hurlers with better stuff — reliever or otherwise.

Duran got the call to protect a narrow one-run lead against the top of Tampa Bay’s lineup and needed just 14 pitches (eight strikes) to spin a flawless frame. He got Yandy Díaz and Brandon Lowe to ground out to open the frame before getting rookie sensation Junior Caminero to chase a two-strike breaking ball out of the zone to slam the door.

Duran reached back for a little something extra in this one as his fastball averaged 101.3 MPH, almost a full tick faster than his average this season. Hats off to Brian Serven who wore one of those fastballs to represent the Blue Jays’ only base runner in the ninth inning. Duran has bounced back nicely with two saves this weekend against Toronto after imploding on Tuesday against the Braves.

Duran had an easy outing tonight after giving up four runs his last time out. He threw just 11 pitches in the contest, so he should be fine to close again on Saturday.

As Sarah Langs would say, “wheeeeeeeee!” Duran hadn’t blown a save since June 21st and fell victim to unfortunate luck as Edouard Julien booted a ground ball that looked like it would be a game-ending double play. Rather, Lars Nootbaar hit a game-winning two RBI single two batters later and Duran took an unlucky loss.

Durán struck out Nathaniel Lowe to open the 10th in a tie game, but he took the loss afterwards on a slow roller that Jose Miranda made a bad throw on and that ended up allowing Adolis García to score from second base. The run from the automatic runner would have been unearned regardless, but this sort of made it doubly so.

Duran struck out two of the four batters he faced. He’ll certainly now get Saturday off, which could lead to a save chance for Griffin Jax.