The Jhoan Durán Panic Is Hugely Overblown

His latest patch of outings has people sounding the alarm on Jhoan Durán here in the crucial final stretch of the season. On the surface, that seems understandable: Over his past dozen appearances, he has a 6.30 ERA and opponents have batted .326 against him. On Saturday, the hard-throwing righty was charged with three runs that turned a two-run lead into a deficit. His next time out, on Wednesday, Durán gave up three hits in the ninth, putting a three-run lead at risk before finally sealing up the win.

But here's the thing. That was Durán's 23rd save conversion in 25 tries this year. In the capacity of closer, he's gotten his job done as well as you could ask. And while there have been some hiccups along the way in terms of results, lately those have related less to poor pitching and more to other factors outside his control.

Consider this: In the same span of 12 appearances where Durán has posted a 6.30 ERA, he has also posted a 0.68 FIP. Within this sample of work, he has struck out 17 hitters with one walk in 10 innings, and he hasn't allowed a home run. In fact, Durán has not allowed a home run since June 21st. His xERA, at 2.83, is in the 92nd percentile among MLB pitchers. There was a time where his strikeouts were concerningly down and his control was spotty, but that's no longer the case. 

Since the All-Star break Durán leads all Twins pitchers in strikeout rate (33%), and he has walked only three of 82 batters during that span. His swinging-strike rate is a very healthy 16 percent. In terms of pure performance, and basically everything under his direct power, Durán is dominating, even while missing a few ticks from his still-elite velocity.

So what's up with those pesky hiccups? No one can deny that Durán has let some games spiral under his watch -- charged with five losses in 20 appearances since the All-Star break despite the above numbers. And I'm not trying to absolve Durán entirely from blame with these outcomes; there have been mistakes and lapses in execution, like on Wednesday night when he grooved an 0-2 fastball down the middle to LA's #9 hitter, helping the Angels mount a ninth-inning threat. 

But ask yourself, logically: If Durán were pitching so poorly, and his stuff were so drastically diminished as to be driving these outcomes ... Wouldn't he be struggling to miss bats, or throw strikes? If he's so frequently leaving pitches out over the plate, wouldn't an opposing hitter have squared up a single one for a homer in the past three months?

The reality is, Durán is pitching very well. He's been getting papercut to death by singles, many of which are grounders or soft liners that simply went to the wrong place. Or, they didn't, but were completely bungled by the Twins defense, which has been staggeringly awful in the late stage of the season. 

Wednesday's save was a perfect example of the snake-bitten curse that has afflicted Durán in the second half, during which he's been victimized by a .460 (!) BABIP: four Angels hitters put the ball in play, and three went for singles. Durán still got wriggled out of the jam and closed out the win, as he usually has. And despite all the uproar I saw, I just don't see a case that he pitched badly. 

The difference between Nolan Schanuel's ground-ball RBI single with one out, which brought the score to 6-4, and the Michael Stefanic groundout to short, which ended the game rather than bleeding through and scoring the tying run, is pretty much negligible in terms of Durán's influence. In both cases he did his job.

That's steadily been the case for Durán in the second half of the season, even if the results have sometimes betrayed his strong work. While that's certainly liable to happen again in the future -- especially if Minnesota's defense doesn't sharpen up -- there isn't really anything specific to Durán's performance that should have people feeling concerned about him. As long as he keeps doing his job, the Twins will be in good shape, and he'll loom as an intimidating postseason factor. Provided they start making some plays behind him.