When the Red Sox dealt Rafael Devers to the Giants on June 15, the baseball world reeled.
“To say my jaw hit the floor would be an understatement,” said Atlanta pitcher Chris Sale.
“It shocked the hell out of me,” agreed Red Sox reliever Liam Hendriks. “I was on the couch at home because I didn’t go on that trip, and I went, ‘Oh, [expletive]!’ I thought it was a parody.”
It wasn’t. Even though it meant cutting ties with their best hitter, the Sox — incensed by Devers’s unwillingness to prioritize team needs by considering a position change, and eager to find a trade partner for the 28-year-old rather than risking the possibility of an injury eroding his market before the deadline — made the determination that they’d rather move forward without Devers than with him. In discussing the trade, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow offered a hard-to-fathom assessment.
“I do think that there is a real chance that at the end of the season, we’re looking back, and we’ve won more games than we otherwise would have,” said Breslow.
The idea seemed far-fetched, particularly as the Red Sox offense spiraled in the initial weeks without Devers. But shockingly, on the heels of a 10-game winning streak leading into the All-Star break, the before-and-after comparison is now quite flattering to the Sox.
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