But the Devers trade happened 45 days ago, when the world was ... OK, still a boiling, decomposing mess, but different. The Red Sox have the third-best record in baseball during that stretch—after Toronto and Milwaukee, the dream World Series—and are actively looking to buy pitching and a first baseman who can hit. The Giants, on the other hand, have the worst record in baseball over the same six and a half weeks and are looking to sell—just make them an offer and they'll be what the Red Sox were back in June. And Devers has been everything the Red Sox hoped he would be when they traded him, which is to say an absolute out machine.

Other than a couple of properly Deversian series against the tedious West Sacramentans and injury-savaged Atlantas, Devers is hitting .169 as a Giant as part of career-worsts in every useful metric. He neither homers (four) nor drives in runs (15) despite playing every day, and just went 0-for-the-Pirates, as did his teammates. The prosecution rests.