Red Sox’s Alex Cora Shares Heartfelt Message About Jarren Duran

In the sports world each person is judged — typically rather harshly — based on the product on the field.

Wins, hits, home runs, WAR, etc. You name it. That’s typically it and what gets lost is the fact that all of these stories and videos and comments are about real people.

With the release of the new Boston Red Sox documentary on Netflix something that has been discussed a lot over the last few days has been Duran’s announcement about his battle with mental health and how it led him to attempt to commit suicide.

That’s a heavy topic for anyone to talk about. But even more so when you take into the fact this is a guy who is one to the faces of one of the most popular sports franchises in a massive media market. There isn't much privacy there, unfortunately. It’s unbelievably sad but he’s shown strength to share his story and he will help a lot of people.

Manager Alex Cora shared a heartfelt message about him on Tuesday, as transcribed by MassLive.com's Chris Cotillo.

"Obviously, it’s not going to be a packed house tonight with the weather," Cora said. "But he should get a standing ovation right away, not for what he went through but what he’s doing with it. He should be nominated already for the Roberto Clemente Award. Right now. He should win it, to be honest with you. Just because of what he said and what he’s doing. He’s saving lives and we’re very proud of him."

He already is making an impact. It was shared on Tuesday that Samaritans -- a company who offers 24/7 suicide prevention services in the Boston area -- "received triple the amount of texts" on their youth helpline, as shared by NESN.

Baseball is great but this is even more important.