He revealed that he saw some of his former teammates when the Sox got to town on Thursday night and was glad to be back among some old friends. Beyond that, he stayed on message.
Friday was already the fourth game Devers has played for the Giants, so dwelling on the Sox doesn’t do him much good. He needs to find an apartment a lot more than he needs to think about his former team.
Devers and the rest of the Giants took the field for pregame drills at 4:15 local time. He spotted Red Sox head of team travel Mark Cacciatore, assistant athletic trainer Anthony Cerundolo, and team security man Jimmy Freeman and jogged over to say hello.
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Hugs, handshakes, and some photos followed. Devers then went back to the field and took grounders at first base.
Devers was back in the Giants clubhouse when Sox manager Alex Cora came out to the dugout for his pregame media session.
Cora acknowledged the awkwardness of facing Devers so soon after the trade.
“There’s a lot of stuff that Raffy did for us that we’re going to miss, and we’re very proud of him,” Cora said. “So to face him here, it’s going to be different from my end.”
But it’s nothing new to these guys.
Cora was traded to the Red Sox in 2005 for Ramón Vázquez, who is now his bench coach. They actually switched homes at the time.
Giants manager Bob Melvin was traded four times. Eight of the 20 players in the starting lineups were traded at some point in their career.
San Francisco righthander Justin Verlander, who went on paternity leave on Friday, was traded twice in his career and he’ll be in Cooperstown someday.
Devers was the last player remaining from the 2018 Red Sox. He saw Andrew Benintendi, Mookie Betts, Mitch Moreland, David Price, Chris Sale, and Christian Vázquez all get traded.
He said earlier in the week that he suspected his time would come eventually.
Cora pointed out that the Astros have one player remaining from their 2017 championship team and the Nationals have none from 2019.
The Yankees kept Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, and Mariano Rivera together as long as they could. But teams don’t operate that way anymore.
“That’s the business,” Cora said. “It’s tough just to see them, but they’re good players; they’re good people. I’ll always root for them, except the weekend that we’re playing.”
Devers left the Red Sox feeling he hadn’t been treated with respect. Sox management felt he should have been more willing to change positions to help the team.
It’s not a subject Cora cares to revisit and he doesn’t plan to discuss it with Devers, a player he was close to.
“Nothing in this business is personal. That’s something that throughout the years I always tell them,” he said. “We agree on a lot of stuff; we disagree on others.
“Xander Bogaerts is in San Diego, it’s not personal. Mookie Betts is in LA, it’s not personal. Raffy Devers is with the Giants, it’s not personal. “
Devers came to the plate in the bottom of the first inning. As the crowd gave him an ovation, he tapped catcher Carlos Narváez on the shin guard with his bat to say hello but did not glance at the Red Sox dugout.
Devers swung at the first pitch and grounded to first. It was just another game.
Peter Abraham can be reached at peter.abraham@globe.com. Follow him @PeteAbe.
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