Red Sox players ‘just as shocked as everyone else' by trade of Rafael Devers
Red Sox players learned at about the same time as the rest of the baseball world: Team decision-makers
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All of a sudden, their best hitter was gone.
'Probably just as shocked as everyone else. That's the best way to describe it. Didn't really see it coming,' Trevor Story said Monday afternoon. 'The timing of it comes at a weird time. We thought we were playing really good. It's a brutal reminder that this game is a business. It showed its face.'
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Shortstop Trevor Story (10) celebrates with Rafael Devers after the DH's homer on Sunday. A few hours later, Story and the rest of the Red Sox were no longer teammates with Devers.
Greg M. Cooper/Associated Press
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Jarren Duran added, echoing that sentiment: 'I didn't see it coming. It was a shock … They made a decision that they thought was best for us. We have to stick by it and move forward as a team.'
And Garrett Crochet: 'Tough blow … It was a shock for sure, after the run we just had this past week.'
A day later, as they prepared for the series opener with the Mariners, a competitor in the American League wild-card race, Sox players trying to move on appeared loose and jovial in the clubhouse. They attended routine pregame meetings, ate snacks, and shouted inside jokes across the room. Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow walked through the room, stopping at Aroldis Chapman's locker to share a comment and a laugh.
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Infielder/outfielder Nate Eaton arrived from Triple A Worcester as the answer to a trivia question: Who filled Devers's roster spot?
In a transactional sense, Eaton was the easy answer, at least until right fielder Wilyer Abreu returns from the injured list, which is expected Friday.
In a larger baseball sense, it's not as simple. Journeyman infielder Abraham Toro, who has been hot, moved into Devers' No. 2 spot in the lineup. Kristian Campbell was slotted in as the designated hitter, with David Hamilton playing second.
How or if the Red Sox replace Devers's All-Star-caliber performance remains to be seen.
'Obviously, he has a big presence in the lineup. We'll miss that,' Crochet said. 'But we can't really just sit here and harp on that. I don't think that does anybody in this room any good. I don't think that's what the fan base wants to hear either.'
In a coincidental announcement that underscored his popularity and production, Devers led AL DHs with 796,382 votes in the first All-Star balloting update, released Monday by MLB.
But since he now is in the NL, he is off the AL ballot (and well behind the Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani on the NL side). So the AL DH leader is the Orioles' Ryan O'Hearn at 353,029 — less than half of Devers's total.
By the time the players arrived at T-Mobile Park, manager Alex Cora was the only member of management to address the team, Story said. Walker Buehler and Crochet said in separate interviews that the front office didn't owe them an explanation.
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Red Sox pitcher Walker Buehler said the Red Sox brass didn't owe an explanation to their players: "This is part of the business," the veteran hurler added.
Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
'From the outside perspective, that would seem like a logical thing,' Buehler said. 'But this is part of the business. We have no reason to get an explanation. They made a decision. Our job remains the same.'
The overall sentiment of Cora's message, Duran said, was simple: onward. Several players struck the same tone in their public comments.
'(Cora) trusts everybody we got right now,' Duran said. 'I trust everybody we have now, and we can't let one little thing deter what we got going so far.'
This is one thing, sure, but it's not exactly a little thing.
'He's a great player, but at the end of the day, it's how many guys? Twenty-six, right?' Duran said. 'It's just one guy. So we got 25 other guys who were pulling on the same line to win those series, not just one. So I think we gotta think about it like that, as a team.'
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USA Today
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