It's hard to fathom in hindsight that for two solid months, the Boston Red Sox had both Alex Bregman and Rafael Devers in the lineup last season.
The story is well-documented at this point: the Red Sox blindsided Devers by signing Bregman, then further angered him by moving him from third base to designated hitter. He got so frustrated when they asked him to move again, this time to first base, that he dug in his heels and refused, which eventually prompted a trade to the San Francisco Giants. All that, just for Bregman to opt out of his contract after one year and sign with the Chicago Cubs.
So yes, there are now two former All-Star Red Sox third basemen lacing up their cleats in the National League. And on Tuesday, Bregman delivered a very rude reminder of that fact to his Instagram following, which has to include a fair number of Red Sox fans at this point.
In a slideshow post captioned "Baseball Time," Bregman included a photo of himself and Devers smiling and dapping each other up in their Giants and Cubs uniforms. The post had nearly 9,000 likes as of Wednesday afternoon, and a photo of the post tweeted by the "Talkin' Baseball" account from Jomboy Media had over 4,000 likes.
It's fun for other fan bases to dunk on the Red Sox for their failures, so this one was a bit of a layup. And Bregman had to at least know the consequences of what he was doing, even if the sole point of the post wasn't to give Red Sox fans nightmares.
But all Boston can do at this point is look to the future, and without two of its best power bats from last season, some unexpected contributors will need to step up this season.