The suddenly surging Red Sox swept the Yankees at Fenway on Sunday afternoon for their fifth straight win, got on a plane to Seattle for a nine-game west coast trip, then traded franchise face Rafael Devers to the Giants for mediocre pitchers Kyle Harrison (1-1, 4.56 ERA) and Jordan Hicks (1-5, 6.47), plus two far-away prospects.
It’s a big bowl of bad for Boston baseball. The Red Sox are once again saving money and asking their paying population to tolerate a mediocre present in hopes of a better future.
No thanks.
The illusion of contention and more talk about better days ahead is a tough sell for a once-great franchise that’s finished last three times in five years and has won only one playoff series since 2018. The Giants on Sunday told their fans that they are about winning this year. The Red Sox did just the opposite.
Devers was taken off the Sox charter flight moments before the craft took off from Logan Airport, then was seen by WCVB’s Duke Castiglione when he returned to Fenway Park in a cab.
San Francisco is assuming the whopping $254 million balance of the 11-year, $331 million contract Devers signed in 2023.
The 28-year-old Devers, a nine-year Sox veteran and three-time All-Star, evidently sealed his fate by refusing multiple team requests to return to the field after they made him a designated hitter when free agent Alex Bregman was signed in February. Devers initially balked at the request to move to DH, then said no when the team asked him about playing first base after Triston Casas was lost for the season with a leg injury.
Devers was openly critical of baseball operations boss Craig Breslow, after which Red Sox owner John Henry (who also owns the Globe) made the dramatic move of flying to Kansas City to personally implore Devers to return to the field. Nothing changed. Sox manager Alex Cora went to great lengths to protect his slugger, but it was clear that Devers wanted out and his intransigence set the wheels in motion.
You don’t want to pick up a glove and help the team? Fine. We’ll trade you.
Devers is a career .279 hitter and one of the most consistent sluggers in baseball the last eight seasons. He homered against the Yankees on Sunday and goes to San Francisco hitting .272, among the league leaders with 15 homers and 58 RBI.
As the Sox started playing better, winning five of six vs. the first-place Yankees and finally crawling back over .500 to get into wild card “contention,” a logjam developed in the everyday lineup. Top prospects Marcelo Mayer and Roman Anthony were called up from Worcester, but have not played every day because of unexpected production from the likes of Romy Gonzalez and Abraham Toro. With Wilyer Abreu returning from the injured list soon, somebody was going to have to go.
Who would have guessed it would be the team’s best hitter?
Now we know that Mayer and Anthony are here to stay. The Sox have an open spot in the lineup because they just traded their All-Star designated hitter.
It would be hard to come up with a more shocking Red Sox trade in the last half-century. Boston dealt one-time MVP Mookie Betts to the Dodgers before the 2020 season, but Betts was about to become a free agent and there was considerable speculation that the team would move him. It’s worked out horrible here, and many fans have never gotten over the deal.
Nomar Garciaparra was traded by Theo Epstein in the summer of 2004, but only after a lot of internal squabble and when it was clear Nomie was on the downside of a great career. That one worked out well. Theo was right.
Babe Ruth was sold to the Yankees after the 1919 season. It took nine decades to recover.
There’s been considerable fan backlash around Fenway in recent seasons. After Tom Werner’s “full throttle” fizzled last summer, things finally seem better when the Sox traded prospects for ace Garrett Crochet, then signed free agents Walker Buehler, Aroldis Chapman, and big fish Bregman. It looked like they were on their way to behaving like a big-market team once again. It felt like they might finally be about winning now again.
Not anymore. Once again, the Sox have traded a star, cut payroll, and done little to make this year’s team better.
Six years ago, the Red Sox were defending world champs and had a young core of Betts, Xander Bogaerts, and Devers. There was a lot of debate about who to keep, and who to let go.
They’re all gone, and so are the good vibes of two weekends against the Yankees.
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at daniel.shaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him @dan_shaughnessy.
