The Red Sox are about to get their first look at Rafael Devers back in Fenway Park, and the buildup already has the old tension bubbling again.
Boston is set to host the San Francisco Giants, who now carry two familiar names from the Red Sox world: Devers and Marcelo Mayer. But it’s Devers, of course, who brings the heat.
He hasn’t played at Fenway since June 15, 2025, when the Red Sox beat the Yankees for their fifth straight win, moved a game over .500, and finished off a three-game sweep of their favorite punching bag. Hours after that, he was pulled off the plane before the team’s trip to Seattle.
That messy split still hangs over this reunion. At the start of the 2025 season, Devers, the coaching staff, and the front office were already tangled up in conflict after the Alex Bregman signing pushed the 28-year-old away from his natural spot at third base. From there, things unraveled into the chain of events that ended with Boston dealing away the face of the franchise.
Now the chatter is starting back up before he even gets to town.
In The Athletic, senior MLB writer Brittany Ghiroli laid out how some inside the Red Sox organization viewed Devers while he was in Boston. “While he was a three-time All-Star in Boston, some in the organization found Devers immature and selfish,” Ghiroli wrote. “On more than one occasion, Devers became upset when asked to honor the age-old practice of letting veteran players with more service time hit first in the batting cages”.
Ghiroli also wrote, “Posey invested more than a half billion dollars in an underperforming veteran core... His big-swing trade for slugging Boston Red Sox first baseman Rafael Devers may hamstring the club for years to come.”
That kind of language is exactly the sort of thing that followed Devers out the door in Boston. When a star leaves on rocky terms, the stories tend to surface about attitude, fit, money, and who was really to blame. This time, though, those questions are coming from outside the Red Sox beat.
The Giants article is mainly about Buster Posey’s legacy and his time running the San Francisco front office, but Devers still looms over it. And now Boston is the place where the latest round of that story gets played out.
From the Red Sox side, the trade has at least looked better than it once did. After a brutal first few months, Boston found its footing and moved into the playoff picture. Devers’ bat would still play in the lineup, but the club clearly doesn’t look the same if it never made the move.
Even so, his return to Fenway is going to feel strange.
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