Eric Canha-Imagn Images
Caleb Durbin had a brutal first few months of the 2026 season. One week into June, the Boston Red Sox third baseman had come to the plate 208 times to the tune of a .190/.254/.288 slash line and a 47 wRC+. Despite his pull-oriented right-handed stroke seemingly being a good fit for the Green Monster, he had also gone deep just once — in a road game, no less. Understandably, the Fenway faithful weren’t exactly enamored with the player who had come East in February as a part of the multi-player deal that sent high-performing southpaw Kyle Harrison to Milwaukee.
Then things turned around. Since June 9, Durbin has slashed a robust .298/.363/.532 with a 145 wRC+ over 158 plate appearances. Moreover, he has homered nine times, with four of the blasts clearing Fenway’s fabled left-field wall. The most recent of the bunch was an eighth-inning game-decider that lifted the Red Sox to the 14th of their franchise-record-tying 15 consecutive wins.
What exactly did Durbin do to rebound from his disappointing early-season results? I asked him that question in the days leading up to the All-Star break, but before doing so, a related inquiry was in order: How does the present-day Durbin compare to the then-23-year-old New York Yankees prospect I spoke to in May 2023?
“I have a better idea of how the pitchers are attacking me,” replied Durbin, who was in Double-A when our initial conversation took place. “In the minor leagues, you’re kind of raw. You’re just keeping it simple — which isn’t always a bad thing; it’s good to simplify — but having a good idea of how I’m being attacked is a big part of my approach now.
“I still try to be aggressive and trust my eyes,” he added. “When I’m at my best, I’m trusting that I’m going to swing at good pitches. Chasing is going to happen — this is a tough game — but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be aggressive.”
His approach certainly worked last season. While he didn’t exactly wreak havoc on opposing pitchers, the third-place finisher in National League Rookie of the Year balloting was nonetheless rock solid with the bat. A steady contributor on a Brewers team that captured its third straight Central Division title, Durbin augmented his plus defense with 36 extra-base hits and a 105 wRC+, while his 9.9% strikeout rate ranked fifth lowest among all qualified hitters.
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Why then the inability to square up the baseball in the initial months with his new team?
“You’re always making adjustments based on how you feel and the results you’re getting, and earlier this year I was having a tough time getting the ball off the ground,” Durbin told me. “When I have a more vertical bat through the zone, and am staying inside and through the ball, that helps me get the ball in the air.”
“I’d been pulling off,” Durbin explained when asked to elaborate. “I was pulling my front side open and my direction was bad. My bat path was also bad. If your direction and bat path aren’t good, you’re going to hit a lot of balls on the ground. Conversely, when you’re attacking the inside part of the ball, good things happen.”
The proof is in the pudding. The resurgent third baseman has logged a 42.0% fly ball rate since June 9, whereas it had previously been a paltry 28.1%. It also bears noting that not all balls hit in the air are the same. Durbin’s infield fly rate was an unbecoming 23.3% prior to his turnaround; since things started clicking, it’s a more-pleasing-to-the-eye 12.0%.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and despite having had success at every level, Durbin, who was a 14th-round pick in the 2021 draft out of St. Louis’ Washington University, is now with his fourth organization. His itinerant journey has contributed to how he approaches alterations made at the dish.
“You don’t really want to change your swing a whole lot,” said Durbin, who has bounced from the Braves to the Yankees to the Brewers, and now the Red Sox. “I’ve learned that from being traded. You have so many hitting coaches throughout pro ball, so if you’re changing your swing every time you get a new hitting coach, that is going to cause some chaos. You have your guys in-season, and then in the offseason you’re kind of doing what you’ve got to do to be in the right position. But again, you don’t want to make too many drastic swing changes.”
How difficult is it not to make drastic — or at least not-so-subtle — changes when you’ve been scuffling as much as Durbin was earlier this season?
“I think you just have to know what the issue is,” the infielder reasoned. “Is it swing decisions? Are you not on time? Those have nothing to do with mechanics. If those two boxes are checked and I’m not getting good results, then it could be a swing issue.”
Which, by and large, it was. Even so, the issue wasn’t corrected with a specific change, drastic or otherwise. At least not in the opinion of Red Sox hitting coach John Soteropulos.
“There wasn’t one big adjustment,” Soteropulos told me during Boston’s most recent home stand. “It was just normal training type stuff. He just built a lot of small training adjustments on top of each other. It wasn’t like he changed ‘this’ and started going off. He worked on three or four of the right things, and it compounded into the success we’re seeing now.”
“There is some small mechanical stuff that was cleaned up, but his bat-to-ball and swing decisions were always good,” added the hitting coach. “Now he’s just taking the best version of his swing. That’s what has led to the consistent contact quality. Along with swinging at the right pitches, he is on time, and his swing is in a really good spot from a ball-flight standpoint. On top of that, he’s a gamer.”
A gamer whose return to form has gone a long way toward the resurrection of what had been a woeful Red Sox season. No longer just providing Gold Glove-quality defense at the hot corner, Durbin has doing meaningful damage with the bat.