Giants Slugger Rafael Devers Not Rattled by His Return Reception in Boston

Even though the San Francisco Giants have had more than their fair share of losses this season.

When you have a 52-76 record, and you've basically been out of the race since early June, it's a sign that the wheels have come off this team. But Friday night's defeat at the hands of the Boston Red Sox was an even more bitter pill to swallow than usual for Tony Vitello's ball club, especially for one former Sox star.

For Rafael Devers, who has hit 215 of his career 261 home runs while playing in Beantown, the game could have been a homecoming.

He was, after all, one of the club's clobberers for the better part of a decade. Devers arrived in Boston in 2017 and was a fixture there until his mid-season trade to San Fran last year. Oddly, Devers was traded in a season where he produced a total of 35 home runs and 109 RBI, which left some fans and observers scratching their heads.

The fan base didn't care. They saw Devers as a traitor returning to town, and the majority of the crowd reacted negatively to Raffy's at-bats. They particularly weren't pleased with his solo shot in the fourth inning that silenced many of the naysayers.

The rumor mill said that Devers was quite a malcontent in his final couple of years with Boston, especially when it came to his work on defense. Devers allegedly refused to move to first base after being assured by the club that he would be the designated hitter for almost all of 2025. This led to allegations of him being' difficult' or not willing to put in the work to better himself at the position. That was enough for the Fenway faithful to make Devers feel unwelcome in their stadium.

Devers Remains Unfazed

Devers in the dugout — Devers celebrates his home run Friday at Fenway Park | Paul Rutherford | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

For his part, Devers refused to get involved in the controversy surrounding his return. Instead, he offered a measured response when asked about the Boston boo birds.

“I don’t want to think about the past,” he said, according to The Athletic (subscription required). “I don’t want to talk about the past. But at the same time, we’re all men, we’re all grown-ups. We have to understand this is the business of baseball, but at the same time, you make mistakes, and you have to move on and mature.”

“I feel really good; I think I have matured during the year. I think that I have learned. As an athlete, there’s things that are going to happen, and what you have to do is move forward and learn from that.”

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