'Loose' Ezequiel Duran Earning Playing Time For Texas Rangers

Texas Rangers manager Bruce Bochy likes Ezequiel Duran's approach as he fills in for Corey Seager at shortstop.

ARLINGTON, Texas —Texas Rangers shortstop Corey Seager has a job when he gets back from the injured list.

But, for now, the job belongs to Ezequiel Duran. Rangers manager Bruce Bochy sees something special in Duran.

“He had a lot of fun,” Bochy said Tuesday night after the Rangers rallied for a 6-4 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks. “He plays very loose. I think that’s when you get your best player.”

If that’s the definition, no one on the Rangers is looser than Duran right now.

It was his red-hot bat that lifted the Rangers to victory in the series opener at Globe Life Field. He went 3-for-4 and nearly hit for the cycle, falling a triple short.

His two-run home run in the bottom of the sixth provided the go-ahead run, as Texas came back from a 4-1 deficit. It was his third of the season and it pushed his batting average at the time to .333. He finished the game at .328.

On April 16, Duran was batting .150 and wasn’t even in the conversation to play shortstop. He never got down about his situation.

“I show up every day, just work hard and do everything the team asks of me,” Duran said through an interpreter. “Every chance I can get to help the team out that’s what is important to me right now.”

No part of Duran’s game has helped the Rangers more than his bat.

Since that April 16 nadir, Duran has reached base in 13 straight games. He’s batting better than .400. He had a season-best six-game hitting streak, tied a career high in hits against the Cincinnati Reds on April 24 and tied a career-high in RBI against the Kansas City Royals on April 19.

His two-run home run against the New York Yankees on Saturday produced all the scoring in support of Nathan Eovaldi’s complete-game shutout.

Duran started Tuesday’s game with a double in the second, but the Rangers stranded him at third base. In the fifth, Duran kick-started a two-run rally with a leadoff single. Four of the first five Rangers singled, and Duran scored on Marcus Semien’s single, which cut the Diamondbacks’ lead to 4-2.

In the sixth, things came back around to Duran after Jonah Heim’s two-out single. Duran pulled Scott McGough’s 1-1 pitch into the Diamondbacks bullpen in left field and went 431 feet.

“He’s a smart hitter,” Bochy said. “I think he sees what they’re trying to do. He’s adjusting on the fly and that’s what you like from a young kid.”

Just as important as the offense is the defense Duran has brought to a position that he barely played going into this season. He spent his offseason gearing up to play around the diamond, including outfield. But he was pressed into service at shortstop after Josh Smith was unable to produce solid offensive numbers in Seager’s place.

Duran’s surge in production is due in part to getting regular at-bats every day. Because of that, Bochy said, Duran is hitting like the player they saw in Spring Training and not like the player from early in the season when he was getting sporadic playing time.

Now there’s a new challenge for the Rangers. What will they do with Duran once Seager is healthy and ready to return?

That’s a tomorrow question. For now, it’s Duran’s job.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Bochy said. “These things have a way of working themselves out. It’s going to be hard to keep this kid out (of the lineup). He’s just playing such good baseball and he’s got the speed to play anywhere — outfield, infield, so it’s a very workable situation once we get to that point.”

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You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard

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