A day after the Boston Red Sox traded Rafael Devers to the San Francisco Giants, with the wound still very much fresh, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow and team president Sam Kennedy made things even worse over a Zoom presser on the trade. Breslow openly admitted that the return from San Francisco might not've been the best Boston could've gotten, as if that was a normal and not insane thing to say.
But the Red Sox had already made it pretty clear that the Giants' return wasn't optimal, because they optioned Kyle Harrison, arguably the headliner of San Francisco's part of the deal, to Triple-A in the same breath as their official announcement of the trade.
Boston got just two major leaguers — Harrison and Jordan Hicks — and they'd swapped places in the rotation and bullpen as Hicks' ERA ballooned to 6.55 as a starter and Harrison's stood at 3.38 after 5 1/3 innings as a reliever.
The Red Sox were never even interested in pretending that what they got from the Giants was good enough, and as San Francisco celebrates the fact that they got an AL-best hitter by giving up almost nothing, this is just another twist of the knife for Boston fans.
Sigh.
— Hunter Noll (@Hunter_Noll) June 16, 2025
Per source:
Red Sox are optioning newly acquired pitcher Kyle Harrison to Triple-A.
That will go over well.
Red Sox immediately demoted Rafael Devers trade headliner Kyle Harrison to Triple-A
Harrison started the season in Triple-A after putting up a 10.80 ERA in 6 2/3 spring training innings. He looked decent enough as a reliever at the same time Hicks was looking like he didn't have it in him to be a starter (again), so they swapped, and Harrison's results as a member of the rotation have been a bit of a mixed bag ever since. He made a great, scoreless five-inning start against the Marlins on May 30 — but, to be fair, that was the Marlins — before pitching 9 1/3 innings with eight earned runs in his next two starts.
The Red Sox were certainly going off of that recent track record when they made the decision to option Harrison, and the fact taht the rotation is full with Garrett Crochet, Walker Buehler, Brayan Bello, Lucas Giolito, and Hunter Dobbins.
But the front office really made this trade knowing that they were only going to get one major-league-ready player (who's not technically even major-league-ready, as Hicks went onto the IL on June 3) back for one of the best hitters in baseball? Not a decent hitter, not a fearsome, high-leverage reliever, but a guy who's injured and has a nearly 6.50 ERA. The Red Sox really just keep handing fans more and more reasons to hate this trade (outside of the obvious).