It might be a while before the Boston Red Sox organization stops talking about Rafael Devers.
Five months after the drama began around the Red Sox and nearly a month after it culminated in a trade with the San Francisco Giants, Red Sox play-by-play broadcaster Will Flemming dredged up some history by recalling a time his team’s first baseman allegedly no-showed to a first-base tutoring session with Giants great Will Clark.
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Here’s what he had to say during an appearance on WEEI on Monday:
“They think he’s going to win them divisions and hit a bunch of — he’s going to hit home runs, of course he is. They don’t yet know what is going to happen with the player. I was there the second day. Will Clark was there to work on ground balls with him at first base and Rafi didn’t show up, so that’s the person that these guys have been dealing with for a long time.”
That’s not exactly stuff you say about someone when you respect their work ethic.
Flemming indicated he was going off a story he heard second-hand from Clark himself on his “Deuces Wild” show last week. And it’s true, if Clark is to be believed. The former Gold Glove first baseman said Devers no-showed on him not once but three days in a row during a series early in the 28-year-old’s San Francisco career:
“I came out early three days in a row — Friday, Saturday, Sunday — to work with [Devers] around first base … So Matt Williams and Bob Melvin want me to go out there and work with him around first base. No problem. And we weren’t going to do anything physical. … And Friday, Saturday, Sunday, he did not come out early at all. Period. Not at all.”
However, what Flemming appears to have left out is Clark saying that he believed Devers skipped those sessions because they would have been spitting distance from the Red Sox dugout during their series at Oracle Park that weekend:
“Everybody’s like, ‘Oh my God, Will, I’m so sorry.’ I’m like ‘Don’t worry about. I know what the f*** happened.’ I said he didn’t want to go out and be 20 feet in front of their freaking dugout with, you know, what went on in Boston, and now he’s working with me at first base. He didn’t want to go through all that bulls*** in the press and the media. So I completely understand. But Rafael Devers, the next time I’m in San Francisco, your ass will be on the field at first base.”
It was a tense environment at that Red Sox-Giants series, which was days after Devers left Boston for good. The big development after that trade was Devers immediately saying he was happy to move to first base, which is the same position change he publicly rejected when asked in Boston. The trade was always about more than just a position, and Devers happily ceding the hot corner to Gold Glover Matt Chapman in San Francisco all but confirmed it.
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Flemming struck a very different tone a day later about Devers, placing the onus of his story on Clark and claiming he wasn’t trying to push a narrative or opinion.
Rafael Devers remains a topic of conversation for the Red Sox media. (Photo by Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images)
(Lachlan Cunningham via Getty Images)
It is worth noting that while Devers supposedly didn’t want to work with Clark because of the proximity to the Red Sox, he definitely took grounders there the day of the series opener, as he had been doing all week.
Clearly, Devers’ reputation in Boston is sealed. Flemming might say he had no ill will toward Devers, but there was a reason he had that story ready off the top of his head a week after Clark shared it and a month after it happened. It is a story his audience would be very ready to hear, because it would be vindicating for them if Devers faces similar drama in San Francisco, as a story like the above would imply.
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You can judge for yourself if Clark’s stated explanation for Devers no-showing holds water considering he was still taking grounders around that time.
The mechanics of the breakup have been discussed at length and both sides said stuff you can’t take back, so there’s really not much else to do. Devers’ priority now is the Giants, for whom he is so far slashing .240/.348/.387 in 20 games.
