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The Boston Red Sox appeared to turn their season around by sweeping the New York Yankees over the weekend – and then they traded away their franchise player.
Shortly after the Sox completed the three-game beatdown of the Bombers, they sent Rafael Devers, who homered on Sunday over the Green Monster, to the San Francisco Giants.
The writing had been on the wall for some time after the Sox signed third baseman Alex Bregman, and eventually, Devers refused to play first base. Devers has only been a designated hitter all season.
“In the end, I think it’s pretty clear that we couldn’t find alignment with Raffy,” Red Sox President and CEO Sam Kennedy told reporters on Monday, via MLB.com. “We all worked at it over the last several months, going back to the offseason, starting with [manager] Alex Cora and [chief baseball officer] Craig [Brewslow] and the staff, and then up to me, and all the way up to [owner] John Henry.
“We worked at it. We had a different vision for him going forward than he had, and we couldn’t get there. We couldn’t find alignment, and we reached that inflection point and made the decision to make a big move.”
Despite losing, by far, their best bat, Breslow, a pitcher for 13 MLB seasons, said that the move is “in no way signifying a waving of the white flag on 2025.”
In fact, Breslow actually believes that the trade will result in a better product in the immediate future. “I do think there’s a real chance that at the end of the season,” Breslow said, “we’re looking back, and we’ve won more games than we otherwise would have.”
For what it is worth, the Sox beat the Seattle Mariners, 2-0, on Monday night in their first game of the post-Devers era.
Devers was the last man standing of the 2018 World Series champion Sox still in Boston – but now, all $250 million remaining on his deal is now San Francisco’s responsibility. Breslow insisted the deal was not an attempt to cut payroll — like the deals for Mookie Betts, who went on to win two World Series in Los Angeles, or Chris Sale, who won the NL Cy Young Award in his first season with the Braves.
However, with lots of cash now available – and a team that is right in the postseason race, Breslow said the front office will continue to look for ways to improve the team, with a middle-of-the-lineup hitter a new need.
“For some reason, this team (is) an example where the whole was not greater than the sum of the parts,” he said. “And being great teammates and sacrificing and stepping up for each other and embodying this shared vision, we believe that those are principles that we need to be faithful to.
“And so, at the end of the season, I think we could look back and say we’ve won more games than we otherwise would have, because of the way that this roster is now able to come together.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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