Some Things I Think I Think: Caleb Durbin’s turnaround is worth saluting

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∗ As recently as May 24, Caleb Durbin was hitting .163 with an OPS of .479. And maybe the use of the word “hitting” would be a stretch in this case.

Durbin was actually not hitting, at least not very much. And when he did hit, it was frequently a weak groundout. This was the guy the Red Sox were excited to acquire? This was the guy for whom they surrendered Kyle Harrison?

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There are bad starts and then there’s whatever befell Durbin. He was mocked endlessly. He was too short, too small, and wasn’t it too funny that the Red Sox thought this guy could be an everyday player?

He was benched for a stretch, as the Red Sox turned to alternatives at third and discussed whether he might benefit from some time in the minor leagues.

Through June 9, he had exactly one home run and that, wouldn’t you know it, came off a position player, hours before Alex Cora and most of his coaching staff were summarily dismissed.

Meanwhile, Durbin worked. He worked in the cage, worked on his own and worked with a private hitting coach as modern-day players do. And he began to hit. He’s belted seven more homers in the last three and a half weeks.

Heading into Saturday’s action, he had lifted his batting average to .230 and his OPS to .688. Neither number was going to get him onto the AL All-Star team, but it’s still a remarkable bit of progress.

Through it all, Durbin never whined about hitting into tough luck. He didn’t complain about negative media coverage or fan reaction. He just kept working. Another thing: he never took his struggles from the batter’s box out to the field. His play at third base, where he’s been credited with eight defensive runs saved, has been exemplary.

It would have been easy for Caleb Durbin to bury himself. But that didn’t happen.

We still don’t know what Durbin will become, just a season and a half into his major league career. But by now, we know this much: he’s tough. And that should count for something.

∗ These days, we have a hard time agreeing on what day of the week it is these days, but the Jaylen Brown trade has changed all of that: Nobody, and I mean nobody, thinks this was a good idea.

Ordinarily, there’s the need to be that one contrarian, to be the one person who says: “Well, if you really think about it...” and proceeds to rationalize. But not here. Across the board, this deal is universally panned.

You could make the case that it was time to break up the Jays, that in their time together, the Celtics underachieved. But for this return? In no sane view did the Celtics get close to equal value for Brown. And the worst part of it is the sneaking suspicion that it was money-driven and a sign of things to come under new owner Bill Chisholm.

∗ The Bruins emerged from free agency in an underwhelming fashion, which wasn’t a complete surprise. The class of free agents was particularly thin this year and no one came close to qualifying as the No. 1 center the team so obviously needs.

It’s up to Don Sweeney, then, to improve the team via trade, which there’s still time to do. Otherwise, given the improvements made by others in their division, the Bruins will have regressed.

∗ At age 42 and his legacy long ago assured, the need for LeBron James to always be in the spotlight is kind of pathetic. Not every free agent decision qualifies as a cataclysmic cultural event.

∗ Who knew that Mike Vrabel, an invited guest to the Swift-Kelce nuptials, qualified as part of the Beautiful People set?

∗ I don’t know if the Philadelphia Flyers are going to wind up with Leo Carlsson or not. And I’m not convinced he’s worth the $18 million AAV he’d be paid, or the four first-round picks he’d cost.

But I know this: the Flyers deserve some credit for being bold in presenting him with an offer sheet. Great players are hard to find, via trade or draft and good on the Flyers for taking a chance.

∗ I continue to get a chuckle out of people pushing for a salary cap in baseball, as if that alone would fix some of the sport’s most pressing issues. And I’ve never understood how it is that owners can say with a straight face: “I’m spending too much of my own money; we need a rule that prohibits me from doing that!”

∗ It sure did seem odd that, last Sunday night, the NBC broadcast of the Red Sox-Yankee game couldn’t find time to mention Aroldis Chapman had tied a pretty significant record: most career strikeouts by a reliever.

There were all sorts of graphics about “most hits allowed by a pitcher in the Red Sox-Yankee rivalry’' and such, but nothing at all said when Chapman tied Hoyt Wilhelm.

If you tuned in to hear Roger Clemens make a lot of inside jokes about his career, however, well, you were all set. And if you had “Bill Fischer” in some sort of drinking game contest, you were probably comatose by the fourth inning.

∗ Tim Brown’s brilliant Nolan Ryan biography — Nolan: The Singular Life of an American Original is even better than I expected it to be, which is saying something. Brown masterfully portrays Ryan as a larger-than-life athlete without resorting to hyperbole. Read it.

∗ Being an unabashed Beatles fan, I wish the Celtics could find space on their roster for a player named John Ringo, who would fit in nicely with Paul George.

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