Red Sox's Craig Breslow Gives Update On Impending Rafael Devers-1st Base Decision

The drama surrounding Rafael Devers and the Boston Red Sox's front office has cooled down this week, although it's not necessarily for a good reason.

As the Red Sox were swept out of Detroit, dropping them below .500, the bigger questions right now seem to be how the Red Sox can better navigate high-leverage situations, both as an offense and as a bullpen. But at some point, they'll have to return to the Devers question.

Devers made it crystal clear last week that he doesn't want to move to first base, and harshly criticized chief baseball officer Craig Breslow for asking him to do so. That prompted principal owner John Henry and CEO Sam Kennedy to fly to Kansas City the next day to meet with Devers in person, a conversation for which Breslow was not present.

It would be hard to fault the Red Sox to leave Devers at designated hitter, where he's been excelling for six weeks now. At the same time, one can see Breslow's thinking on the matter--playing Devers, the team's best hitter, over Nick Sogard or Abraham Toro could certainly unlock more potential for the offense.

On Thursday, Breslow appeared on the "Greg Hill Show" on WEEI and gave his updated thoughts on the situation.

"My preference is for these things to remain internal," Breslow said. "But Raffy, he's emotional and he's invested, and he cares a ton about the Boston Red Sox. And he obviously had some frustration that he shared in real time. And since then, there have been a number of conversations and meetings.

"Obviously, John and Sam and I flew out to Kansas City. I think the temperature has calmed down a bit, and we're going to continue to talk and engage."

As to whether there is a specific timeline for the Red Sox to make a decision one way or another on Devers' position for the rest of the season, however, Breslow remained mum.

"I think we want to think about, what does this look like over the next few weeks?" he said. "And then also, what does this look like longer term? So nothing has been eliminated, but we have to be realistic about how long a transition might take. This was never something that we were going to have the answers to in a matter of days."

So in short, this might continue to fester for a while. But as important as it may be for the Red Sox to make a decision on Devers, they've got plenty of other fires to put out.