Jarren Duran proves once again he's the villain Dodgers haters think Dalton Rushing is

For the most part, Dalton Rushing has been on good behavior since the worst of his viral antics: showing up Shohei Ohtani during the pair’s joint start on June 24. He’s been featured on Jomboy Media’s Twitter account a couple times since, but it’s pretty blatant pandering to Dodgers haters who want any excuse to hate him more.

The chatter online hasn’t affected his performance at the plate, either. He’s hitting .288 with an .883 OPS in July and is still getting the vast majority of starts behind the plate in Will Smith’s absence.

If Yankees fan-led Jomboy Media needs a different player to call out for making himself and his team look bad on the field, they should look no further than Jarren Duran. On Thursday night, Duran -- already a divisive figure both within the Red Sox fandom and outside of it and a guy who’s hitting under the Mendoza line this season -- decided to show up teammate Willson Contreras in Boston’s contest against the Athletics.

Duran, who had already struck out and grounded out in his first two at-bats on the night, hit a fly ball to A’s left fielder Tyler Soderstrom with Masataka Yoshida on second and Contreras on third in a tie game. The ball didn’t go that far, 245 feet into left, and Soderstrom has a cannon. Contreras stayed at third.

Duran responded by yelling and gesturing at his teammate and/or third base coach Chad Epperson during his walk back to the dugout, seemingly mouthing, "Run!"

Jarren Duran, not Dalton Rushing, should be baseball’s pet villain after viral moment on Thursday

Those who have cautioned against Rushing’s behavior have all said the same thing: if a player’s going to act like that, he needs to be able to back it up on the field. Duran has hit below .200 in all but one month of the season so far. His trade value has plummeted, but the Red Sox are (delusionally) still looking for a king’s ransom in return for him.

This is far from the first time Duran has acted up on the field and had to account for it, but at least you can’t say he doesn’t take some accountability. He said after the game, “I f—ing suck. Of course I’m f—ing pissed at myself. I can’t even do a f—ing job for this team.”

Not that it matters when he dismissed the incident with Contreras by telling reporters it was nothing they needed to concern themselves with.

Rushing has received fair criticism for not acting like the adult that he is, but Duran is even older, and has been in the league far longer, and hasn’t yet figured out how to control his emotions like a grown man.

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