
SAN FRANCISCO — As Rafael Devers prepared to play his former team, the Boston Red Sox, on Friday night, he avoided addressing any hard feelings from the fallout of a massive trade earlier this week.
Devers, who was traded to the San Francisco Giants on Sunday night after nine seasons in Boston, repeated multiple times that what happened in Boston was in the past.
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“That’s in the past,” Devers said through an interpreter while sitting in the Giants’ dugout at Oracle Park. “Those are not decisions that I control and I’m leaving that in the past right now.”
When Devers was introduced in a press conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, the Giants noted Devers had begun taking work at first base, something he had refused to do in Boston following Triston Casas’ season-ending knee injury. The Red Sox had already asked Devers to move from third base to designated hitter in the spring after they signed third baseman Alex Bregman, another point of contention for Devers. Devers’ pointed words on May 8 regarding the team’s request for him to play first base led to principal owner John Henry flying to Kansas City the next day to meet with Devers.
“I know I’m a ballplayer but at the same time they can’t expect me to play every single position out there,” Devers said at the time. “In spring training, they talked to me and basically told me to put away my glove — that I wasn’t going to play any other position but DH. So right now I just feel like it’s not an appropriate decision by them to ask me to play another position.”
On Friday, Devers was asked why he was willing to play first in San Francisco but was not willing to in Boston.
“I would say that I put some good numbers up in Boston and I think that I do feel that I have earned some respect,” he said. “If they would have asked me at the beginning of spring training, yes, I would have played.”

Rafael Devers had a .905 OPS and 15 homers in 73 games for the Red Sox. (Winslow Townson / Getty Images)
Asked if he felt disrespected by the Red Sox, Devers demurred.
“What happened happened,” he said. “Again, I don’t want to talk about the past.”
Following Devers’ refusal in early May to begin work at first base in Boston, the Red Sox had rookie Kristian Campbell start working out at first. Devers denied a Yahoo Sports report that he was frustrated that Campbell had started working at first.
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Campbell, who was optioned to Triple-A Worcester on Friday as outfielder Wilyer Abreu was activated off the injury list, also denied the report.
“That was false,” Campbell told reporters in Worcester. “I never went to the Red Sox and said I would play first base, they came to me.”
On his first day back in Triple A, Campbell continued pregame work at first base.
Krisitian Campbell taking grounders at first base in Worcester pic.twitter.com/lLdSAjdDk2
— Katie Morrison-O’Day (@KatieMo61) June 20, 2025
On Monday night, a day after the trade, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow and CEO Sam Kennedy repeated throughout a 40-minute session with the media that the impetus for trading Devers was due to a misalignment in what they were asking of Devers and what he was willing to do.
“We couldn’t find alignment, and we reached that inflection point and made the decision to make a big move,” Kennedy said.
Devers would not address the disconnect on Friday.
“Like I said, that’s in the past,” Devers said. “I really don’t want to talk about it. I want to concentrate on what’s in the future for me.”
With third baseman Matt Chapman on the injury list, Devers was asked if the Giants had inquired about him playing third base, the position he held for eight years in Boston.
“No that never came up,” Devers said. “I mean we have one of the best third basemen in the league. And we know that when he comes back, that’s his position.”
(Photo: Lachlan Cunningham / Getty Images)
This news was originally published on this post .
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