BOSTON – Caleb Durbin has a new morning routine that’s coincided with his rapid turnaround at the plate.At the start of the last homestand, Durbin, on the advice of Boston Red Sox teammate Carlos Narváez, began making the half-hour drive to a private hitting facility, Gradum GSwing in Waltham, a suburb west of Boston. Before each of the team’s recent home games, Durbin has worked with Gradum founder Lorenzo Garmendia for about an hour on various drills before heading to Fenway.The results have been almost immediate. Over the last six games, Durbin has gone 9-for-24 (.375) with five doubles and a triple.Wednesday, Durbin’s single in the third inning preceded a two-run homer from Wilyer Abreu, and his RBI double in the fifth padded Boston’s lead in an 8-1 win over the Baltimore Orioles, one in which Payton Tolle threw six scoreless innings. Durbin finished 2-for-4, extending his hitting streak to six games.In the midst of a brutal start to the season, Durbin was hitting .168 with a .492 OPS through 45 games. He’d started to lose playing time as interim manager Chad Tracy began mixing infielders Nick Sogard and Isiah Kiner-Falefa in at third base. After starting nearly every day for the first six weeks of the season, Durbin was in the starting lineup just three times during a nine-game stretch from May 17-27. He sat back-to-back games during a series against the Atlanta Braves.Narváez, who began hitting at Gradum last year, made a suggestion to Durbin.“Narvy said, ‘Hey my guy wants to hit with you,'” Durbin said. “I was in a position where I was all ears, and I think he’s helped. Obviously, I have kept the coaches here looped in. It’s all things I’ve been working on with them, too. He just saw some things he thought he could help me with, and I was in a position where I was willing to listen.”Though Durbin had been toiling away with Red Sox hitting coaches (before and after the firings), the work wasn’t translating on the field. Sometimes a different set of eyes or a different delivery of information does the trick.
How a private hitting coach has helped Caleb Durbin of Red Sox find his groove
Adjustments have helped Durbin drop his groundball rate from about 60 percent to roughly 40 percent.








