Luis Ramírez grew up in El Taque, a small village in northwestern Venezuela. It was known for its arid climate, full of cacti and barren landscapes.
It was also known for its critters. Ramírez, the assistant pitching coach for the Minnesota Twins, saw his fair share of snakes and centipedes, lizards, and, of course, tarantulas.
They’d hide under bushes and tree roots and had a distinctive pattern — a dark blue body, with a mix of black and yellow stripes along the legs. The image always stuck with the coach throughout his decades-long career in professional baseball.
Ramírez, 52, was hired by the Twins in 2006 to work at their Venezuelan academy. He gradually moved up the ranks, from the Gulf Coast League, to the Appalachian League, to the Arizona Fall League. In 2019, he was promoted to pitching coach at the team’s high-A affiliate in Fort Myers, Fla.
It was there that he met Jhoan Duran. The future Phillies closer was a 21-year-old starter at the time. He was skinny, and tall, with blonde and black dreadlocks sprouting from his head.
One day, when Ramírez was talking to strength and conditioning coach Chuck Bradaway about Duran’s pregame routine, he blurted out a nickname.
“Somehow, ‘Durantula’ came to my mind,” Ramírez said, “and I said it. And it’s been there ever since.”
There were a few reasons the pitching coach came up with this specific moniker. One was his pupil’s last name. Another was that “duro” translates to “hard” in Spanish, and Duran was already hitting triple-digits on the radar gun.
But the biggest reason was Duran’s hair.
“He used to have dreadlocks,” Ramírez recalled. “And the color of his hair was brown, and kind of yellow. And the dreads were kind of long, and it kind of looked like a tarantula.
“It kind of looked like one of those spiders. A little spider leg, hanging [off].”
He added: “I saw a lot of tarantulas when I was a kid, and his hair looked just like it.”
Duran, who watched the Spider-Man movie trilogy growing up, embraced the nickname. When he reached the major leagues in 2022, he began to put tarantulas on his sneakers. He eventually got a tarantula tattoo, and in 2023, an entrance fit for a WWE wrestler.
When the closer was dealt to the Phillies at the 2025 trade deadline, the entrance came with him. Before Duran jogs from the bullpen, all of the lights in Citizen Bank Park go out.
Fans hold up their phones, as a remix of “El Incomprendido” by Farruko and “Hot” by Pitbull and Daddy Yankee begins to play. Duran’s name appears in flames on LED screens, while a tarantula crawls from one side of the ballpark to the other.
The display still makes Ramírez smile.
“The nickname is the same thing with [pitches],” he said. “Sometimes you’re in the bullpen, and you move a grip, or you make a slight adjustment, and now a pitch that was maybe average becomes a weapon. ‘Durantula’ just stuck.”
A playoff mentality
Duran and Ramírez say their relationship is akin to that of a father and son. In 2019, the pitcher moved from his hometown of Esperanza, Dominican Republic, to Fort Myers full-time.
He and Ramírez would train together during the offseason. They’d fine-tune his pitches, tweak his routines, and work on conditioning, but also spent time together off the field.
Their families became close. Duran’s son began calling Ramírez “Tío Lupita” — Uncle Lupita in English — because the pitching coach would play the song “Hay Lupita” by Lomiiel while he was cooking dinner.
“I used to dance with him,” Ramírez said. “The song would go, ‘Hay Lupita, Hay Lupita.’ And then, from there, he just called me Tío Lupita all the time.”
Even as early as 2019, the pitching coach saw promise in Duran. He had big-time stuff without a pretentious attitude. Duran was hungry to learn, and put in the work to do so.
Ramírez could envision him playing a big role for the organization down the road, so when they were in Fort Myers, he started talking to Duran about one day pitching in the World Series.
He didn’t specify what role it would be, but Ramírez had a hunch his pupil would eventually become the team’s closer.
He and Duran split up in 2021, when Ramírez accepted a position coaching at double-A Wichita, and Duran was promoted to triple-A St. Paul.
They reunited at the big league level in 2022, when Duran was converted to a Twins reliever, and picked up their conversations from there.
Ramírez told him to prepare mentally and physically to pitch the last few outs of the biggest game of his life.
“You are going to help us to win a World Series,” Ramírez would tell Duran. “You have to be ready for that. Because you’re going to be the guy closing the game in the World Series.”
“I remember that like yesterday,” Duran added. “He always told me, when he saw me, he’d say, ‘Hey, remember. You’re going to be one of the guys to help the Twins win a World Series.’”
The young pitcher kept the message in the back of his mind, but in 2023, when he closed out the game that would clinch the Twins’ first playoff spot since 2020, he struggled.
Duran threw 34 pitches against the Angels, of which only 17 were strikes. He allowed two walks and one earned run on two hits. Duran got the save, but Ramírez could tell something was off.
So, he approached the pitcher the next day.
“Hey, last night, I thought the game was a little fast for you,” Ramírez said.
“Yes,” Duran conceded. “I was a little sped up.”
“That’s my fault,” the coach replied. “Because I should have prepared you for this moment. We should have talked more before it happened.”
Ramírez connected Duran with the team psychologist, who began working with the closer on visualization exercises. It had an immediate impact.
Duran didn’t allow a run in his four postseason appearances that year. He had six strikeouts and yielded only one walk through five innings pitched.
The closer returned to October baseball in the National League Division Series last season. He pitched in Games 1 and 2 against the Dodgers, allowing one hit and two walks, with four strikeouts.
His final outing came in Game 4. Duran entered in relief of Cristopher Sánchez in the bottom of the seventh, with runners on first and second and one out. He induced a groundout from Andy Pages, and intentionally walked Shohei Ohtani.
In the next at-bat, he walked Mookie Betts, allowing the tying run to score. He retired his next four batters.
Duran was charged with the blown save in the Phillies’ season-ending 2-1 loss, but only after the home plate umpire blew a call earlier in the inning.
This was not the way the closer wanted his season to end. But Ramírez isn’t worried about how he will bounce back.
He says Duran has a short memory, and an unwavering trust in himself — good qualities for a high-pressure job.
The coach is hopeful that the closer will have more October moments. He believes he’s built for it.
“He feeds off of the crowd,” Ramírez said, “off of the energy, the pressure. He’s never been afraid of [a situation where] the game is on the line. He’s never been afraid of that.
“I think that’s why he got traded there. Because, I know that in Philadelphia, the park is always full.”
