"We were all excited. We just swept the Yankees. We love our team and instead of being excited, I'm devastated," a fan told WBZ. "It's wild. We have traded Mookie Betts and Devers in the last five years. Our two best players and we got, essentially, nothing in return for either of them."

It won’t nearly make up in the immediate term for subtracting their best hitter from a lineup built around him, but it nonetheless is a major variable in the club’s stunning new reality.