The boos said what the broadcaster did not have to. Red Sox fans were still angry over how everything fell apart last season, and when Rafael Devers walked back into Fenway Park 14 months later, this time wearing a Giants uniform and facing Boston, they made sure he heard it.

This was the same ballpark where Devers had crushed 95 career home runs, helped Boston take the first two games of the 2018 World Series and eventually won a ring. But none of that erased the bitterness. For the first time, Fenway was watching one of its former faces of the franchise sit in the visitors’ dugout, and plenty of fans clearly were not ready to forgive him.

“We’ll listen to Devers get introduced. The designated hitter, number 16. Rafael Devers.” Foul Territory shared the footage of one broadcaster introducing Devers in the first inning as the stands were filled with a mix of cheers and boos. “I’m disappointed that this is a guy who did a fabulous job for years wearing the Red Sox uniform,” another commentator said, referring to the loud boos.

The Giants’ Friday trip to Fenway turned personal fast. Devers marked his return with his 96th career homer at the ballpark, but Boston fans made one thing clear. They had not forgotten how ugly the breakup became. The boos often overwhelmed the cheers, and even the Red Sox broadcast booth was stunned by the hostility.

Devers finished 1-for-3 with a solo home run, a walk, and an RBI during the Giants’ 6-4 loss against the Red Sox. In the very first inning, he walked out to a loud barrage of boos that heavily outnumbered the scattered applause from the Fenway crowd. Red Sox starter Sonny Gray ultimately caught Devers looking and struck him out on a 92.3 mph sinker to close out his first plate appearance amid roaring cheers from the home fans.

Devers’ second at-bat came in the fourth, when he silenced the crowd by crushing a towering home run to deep center field off Gray. Hit immediately after a Drew Gilbert two-run homer, the back-to-back shot registered an exit velocity of 107.1 mph and traveled 412 feet, narrowing the Giants’ deficit to 5-4. But Boston’s five-run third inning had already put San Francisco in a hole.

And after Devers brought the Giants within one, they never scored again. Gray settled down through the fifth and sixth, while Boston added an insurance run in the sixth to make it 6-4. From there, the Red Sox bullpen shut the door. Erik Miller worked a scoreless seventh and got Devers to ground out in his final completed at-bat, Alec Gamboa handled the eighth, and Aroldis Chapman struck out three in the ninth. Devers was waiting on deck when Chapman struck out Jonah Cox for the final out, sealing Boston’s 6-4 win.

It was expected that Red Sox fans would boo the rival players, especially someone who was their hot corner hero for the last eight years. But with Devers, those boos came with history.

• He made his MLB debut in 2017 at just 20 years old, and his first career hit was a 427-foot home run, making him the youngest Red Sox player to go deep since 1965.
• A year later, he was already delivering on the biggest stage. At 21, Devers crushed a three-run homer off Justin Verlander in Game 5 of the 2018 ALCS, helping Boston clinch the pennant before eventually winning the World Series.
• By 2019, he had developed into one of Boston’s biggest offensive weapons, finishing 12th in AL MVP voting, while the shortened 2020 season briefly slowed that momentum.
• He came roaring back in 2021, earning his first All-Star start, winning a Silver Slugger and finishing 11th in MVP voting.
• By 2022, Devers had become the player Boston was building around. He made his second straight All-Star start and hit .295 with an .879 OPS, 42 doubles, 27 home runs, and 88 RBI, finishing 14th in AL MVP voting.
• The Red Sox doubled down on that belief in 2023, handing him a 10-year, $313.5 million extension and making him the long-term face of the franchise.
• Devers kept producing in 2024, hitting .272 with 28 homers, 83 RBI, and an .870 OPS over 138 games, remaining one of Boston’s biggest offensive threats.
• But everything changed in 2025. Boston signed Alex Bregman, moved Devers off third base, and later asked him to learn first after Triston Casas went down. Devers refused; the relationship with the front office quickly soured, and by June the player Boston had once committed more than $300 million to was suddenly traded to San Francisco.

Yet for all the bitterness in the stands, Boston was not ready to erase what Devers had meant to the franchise.

But the Red Sox made the event special off the field. Between the first and second innings, the organization played a tribute video celebrating Devers’ eight-plus years in Boston and his 2018 World Series run. The boos briefly gave way to warm applause as Devers appeared on the video board, waving and applauding back at his former fans.

Could this be an indication of a reunion this year? Time will answer.

A Devers-Red Sox reunion may not be impossible

This marked the start of both the Red Sox and Rafael Devers choosing to move forward. After the career-altering move made by the Red Sox last year that sent Devers to the Giants, the Red Sox front office went through a wave of bad blood.

Devers was traded away after Boston brought in Alex Bregman to take over at third base.

At the time, Bregman tried to stay out of the fight. “I’m super excited to just be his teammate,” Bregman said. “I’ll play wherever AC tells me to play.”

Cora, however, eventually made Boston’s decision clear. “Alex is going to play third. Raffy is going to DH,” he said after weeks of uncertainty over the position battle.

“We all are in the winning business and he understands that. You don’t have to agree with it.” Bregman eventually left in free agency after the 2025 season, while Cora was fired this year after a 10-17 start.

Devers, meanwhile, now sounds ready to leave the entire mess behind. “I don’t want to think about the past. 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. You have to move on and mature,” Devers said on his return to Fenway. “I think that I have learned as an athlete. There are things that are going to happen. What you have to do is just move forward and learn from that.”

Boston now ranks 23rd in home runs with 131, and that lack of power keeps the Devers question alive. With the bad blood fading and both Bregman and Cora gone, a reunion next offseason no longer feels completely impossible.