Red Sox legend responds to team's mishandling of Rafael Devers situation

Rafael Devers has been unhappy with the Boston Red Sox for the better part of the last four months, and one franchise legend feels manager Alex Cora is to blame.

Pedro Martinez shared his thoughts on the drama between Devers and the Red Sox during Tuesday's "B/R Walkoff Live." The Hall of Fame pitcher said he believes Cora has done a poor job keeping things with his star slugger in-house.

For starters, Martinez feels Cora could have simply asked Devers to take some reps at first base without discussing the 28-year-old changing positions again.

"If Alex wanted to tell Devers to go to first and get some ground balls until (the team gets) healthy, thinking about the future, Devers would have gone to first, catch some ground balls, and nobody would have known that Devers was being trained to be a first baseman," Martinez said. "Not even Devers would probably realize that he was actually being (conditioned) to become a first baseman, because Devers never says no to any type of work that you ask him to do. He will go to first. He will go to the outfield and catch (fly) balls."

Martinez says the same is true of how the situation was handled after the Red Sox signed Gold Glove Award-winning third baseman Alex Bregman.

"I don't think it should have been out there that he was probably gonna be tried at first base and that Bregman was gonna be the only guy at third," Martinez said. "Because what happens if Bregman gets hurt all of a sudden? You have to go to Devers to play third.

"You can't tell him, 'Throw your glove away.' You can't tell him, 'Hey, we want you to now pick up a glove at first and become a first baseman.' The guy's shy enough. He doesn't want to look bad. Believe me, I'm a witness. Nobody wants to go in front of 45,000 people and embarrass himself trying a position that he never played."