With Devers deal done, Boston focused on task at hand

The immediate reaction to the trade of Rafael Devers to the Giants -- and understandable one for Red Sox fans watching another franchise cornerstone traded away -- was that when the team plane took off Sunday night for Seattle without Devers on it, the Red Sox's season took off with it. And maybe it will turn out that it did.

The rest of the season, and not just this weekend's series between the Red Sox and Giants that is like a gift from the schedule-makers, will let us know what to think about all that. But here’s what I think about a trade that I can assure you became inevitable from the time Devers refused to play first base after Triston Casas got hurt: I think the Red Sox are about to become one of the most interesting stories in baseball the rest of the way, and not because they may fall to the bottom of the American League East. Again. Rafael Devers, as talented as he is, had been making no secret -- including in front of his teammates -- of what he thought about the people in charge, from the time the Red Sox signed Alex Bregman and Devers realized he didn’t have the third-base job for life at Fenway Park. Now they move on and he moves on to San Francisco, where he’s now decided he’ll play wherever asked.

But the Red Sox were hot when Devers was still with them, all the way through last weekend when they stunned the Yankees with a three-game sweep at Fenway Park. They managed to stay hot enough by winning two of three from the Mariners in Seattle. And if they do something other than stagger through the rest of this nine-game West Coast trip -- with the Giants and Angels still to come -- before finishing out June at home against the Blue Jays, maybe they can show everybody, including themselves, that they’re still a playoff team even without Devers as their DH.

After Garrett Crochet pitched like a star again on Wednesday afternoon and the Red Sox got home runs from one of their kids, Marcelo Mayer, and one from Trevor Story, I asked Dave O’Brien, the team’s fine play-by-play man on NESN, what the mood of the team had been like in Seattle.

“As shocked as they were on the plane,” O’Brien said, “the players came to grips with it a lot faster than anybody expected. It was like, ‘OK -- what’s done is done. Let’s go.’”

The players weren’t the only ones shocked by the news that Devers, still in the early innings of a 10-year, $313.5 million contract, had been traded for pitchers Jordan Hicks and Kyle Harrison and prospects James Tibbs III and Jose Bello. Devers had been Boston’s best hitter since the team’s last shocking trade, the one that sent Mookie Betts -- as gifted an all-around player as the Red Sox have ever had -- to the Dodgers in 2020. Ever since that one, the Red Sox became a lot more familiar with last place in the AL East than the World Series, even though they’ve won more Series (four) than anybody in this century.

• A deep dive into the prospects the Red Sox got for Rafael Devers

Now they have been reimagined yet again, on the fly, about to be built around kids like Mayer (the home run he hit against the Mariners Wednesday was his fourth since being called up) and Roman Anthony, considered the top prospect in the sport before his callup from Triple-A Worcester, and Kristian Campbell. They have Crochet, who’s been brilliant as one of the true aces anywhere this year, and have watched Aroldis Chapman, at 37, once again dominating ninth innings. And they sure still have Alex Cora as manager.

Now they have to show they can score without Devers once Bregman, who had carried their offense as much as Devers did, is healthy again. They are going to get him back soon, they are going to get back Masataka Yoshida, a forgotten man at Fenway Park for a while, as well. They are also getting Wilyer Abreu, one of their best all-around players a year ago, back this weekend in San Francisco.

Here is something Story, who survived a dreadful slump earlier in the season, said about his Wednesday afternoon home run against the Mariners, and the Red Sox winning another series:

“It’s big,” said Story. “Kind of a pivotal point in our season. It could go one way or the other, and still a lot of baseball to be played. We felt like we responded well after something so big and kind of shocking.”

The context of what happened with Devers is obvious, and not just because it happened in the long shadow of the Betts’ trade, one that will be at Fenway Park forever: The Red Sox did seem to have found their footing after what felt like about a hundred one-run losses this season. They had just swept the Yankees, making it five out of six against New York this season.

Story is right: The Sox's season could go either way from here. For now, that season goes and will find Devers, bottom of the first, Friday night, digging in at the plate as a Giant. Everybody dig in. This is going to be good. Maybe the Red Sox still can be, too.