The Red Sox made a significant change to their batting order for Game 2 of this weekend’s trio with the visiting New York Yankees.
When Jarren Duran plays his 424th career game in the Majors on Saturday night, he’ll bat fifth in the lineup for just the 20th time since making his big-league debut on July 27, 2021 and the first time since the ’23 season.
Duran has spent the bulk of his career batting at the top of the Red Sox order – 301 games, 298 starts – and since manager Alex Cora named him leadoff man early in spring training 2024, has has started 222 games in that capacity, including all of his games this season.
“We’re gonna maximize Romy (Gonzalez) and Ref,” Cora said of Gonzalez and Rob Refsnyder, who’s leading off for the second game in a row. “Against righties, we’ll go the way we’ve been doing it. Against lefties, with the personnel that we have, this makes sense. Just maximizing those two, protecting Raffy (Devers), protecting Jarren. Probably, they’re gonna face more righties than lefties because of how the lineup is.”
Saturday night will be a career-first for Red Sox starting pitcher Hunter Dobbins. The rookie right-hander, who debuted in April, has never faced the same opponent more than once.
The Yankees have something of a score to settle with Dobbins, who put himself on the rivalry map during last weekend’s three-game set at Yankee Stadium, where he
told the Herald he’d rather retire
than ever sign with Boston’s eternal rivals. Though he gave up a pair of home runs to Aaron Judge, Dobbins ultimately triumphed over the Yankees the first time around: he held them to three earned runs on four hits in five innings and was credited with the win when the Red Sox ultimately triumphed 11-7 to take the series.
Rob Refsnyder RF
Rafael Devers DH
Romy Gonzalez 1B
Carlos Narváez C
Jarren Duran LF
Trevor Story SS
Ceddanne Rafaela CF
Marcelo Mayer 3B
Kristian Campbell 2B
Trent Grisham CF
Aaron Judge RF
Ben Rice DH
Paul Goldschmidt 1B
Jazz Chisholm Jr. 3B
Anthony Volpe SS
Jasson Dominguez LF
Austin Wells C
D.J. LeMahieu 2B
LHP Carlos Rodón vs. RHP Hunter Dobbins
First pitch: 7:15 p.m. ET (Fenway Park)
Watch: FOX Sports
Listen: Red Sox – WEEI 93.7, WCCM 1490 AM (SP), WESX 1230 AM (SP) / Yankees – WFAN 660/101.9 FM, WADO 1280
