As the memory of that 10-game winning streak the Red Sox rode into the All-Star break has given way to the 1-4 reality of the first week since the game itself, it’s starting to look like the winner of the ballyhooed Rafael Devers trade between the Red Sox and the Giants was … nobody.
The two pitchers the Red Sox acquired in the trade, Jordan Hicks and Kyle Harrison, have been useless thus far. Hicks walked two and gave up the pitch that went for catchers’ interference on Monday, losing the game in the 10th against the Phillies on Monday. Harrison has made four starts and gone 1-2 with a 5.94 ERA in Triple-A Worcester thus far.
Jose Bello is in rookie ball, and James Tibbs is batting .224 at Double A.
Devers, meanwhile, has been missed by a lineup that scored just 10 runs in five games since the break. The problem, though, is that Devers entered Tuesday batting just .219 for San Francisco. But he did make a significant change for San Francisco: He finally was ready to dust off his first-baseman’s mitt and man the position for the first time in his career.
That surely caused some eye-rolls in the Red Sox dugout.
Red Sox Moving on From Rafael Devers
Before the game, in fact, manager Alex Cora was asked about Devers being prepared to make his position switch. It was something the Red Sox wanted him to do, especially after Triston Casas went down with a season-ending knee injury in May. Devers, who had already protested being moved from his usual third-base spot to designated hitter, refused.
Even after ownership and the front office made a pitch for the change, Devers refused, a big factor in the team’s decision to make the trade with the Giants.
MassLive’s Chris Cotillo reported that Cora declined to discuss the Devers situation in San Francisco, sticking with the organization’s desire to move on and focus on the pieces the team has in place now.
“Alex Cora had no reaction to this development pregame,” Cotillo wrote on Twitter/X.
Craig Breslow, the team’s president, addressed the aftermath of the trade this week on Sirius XM radio, but did not mention the position shift.
“He’s just a tremendous hitter that fits in the middle of a lineup and gives opposing teams fits,” Breslow said. “But I think the reality is, we weren’t winning as many games as we should. We weren’t an example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. We had a bunch of really good individual performances, but they weren’t stacking up to win as many games as we should have been.”
Like Heavy Sports’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
The post Red Sox’s Alex Cora Reaction to Rafael Devers Move Says it All appeared first on Heavy Sports.