Rafael Devers refuses to listen to his manager: it looks (really) bad

Nothing is going right for the San Francisco Giants.

This afternoon, the California team was swept by the Miami Marlins. The three-game series went badly for Tony Vitello's men.

Aside from the Rockies (which was to be expected), the Giants are the worst team in the National League. It's no wonder the club is considering making trades before the deadline.

In addition to Luis Arraez and Robbie Ray, the club is confident that Matt Chapman could be traded. But it's a different story for Willy Adames and Rafael Devers, who have slightly more expensive contracts.

And what happened this afternoon won't exactly help Devers's appeal to other teams in the Manfred era.

Why do I say that?

Because in the ninth inning against the Marlins, Rafael Devers refused to leave the game when his manager tried to replace him with a pinch-runner.

The score was 2-1 in favor of the home team, and Vitello wanted to score a run with no outs. But selfishly, Devers wouldn't hear of helping his manager tie the game.

As you can see, he eventually gave in and left. He was, however, visibly unhappy about not finishing the game.

It didn't change anything, since the Giants lost and the pinch runner was retired in a double play. But that's not the point.

The point is that the manager made a decision to win. And even though Devers' desire to stay in the game speaks to his character, he has to listen to his manager.

If he isn't a leader, he needs to be a good team player.

The Giants signed him knowing he'll never be a speedster… and that's perfectly fine. But he has to accept that sometimes, he won't finish a game because of it.

I wonder if some people connected to the Red Sox are chuckling to themselves, seeing what happened.

Created by humans, assisted by AI.