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Revs’ Caleb Porter: “Defending” isn’t a curse word

The first two weeks of the New England Revolution’s season have left Head Coach Caleb Porter’s team feeling positive on one end of the field and hungry to improve on…

The first two weeks of the New England Revolution’s season have left Head Coach Caleb Porter’s team feeling positive on one end of the field and hungry to improve on the other. New England’s defense has conceded just one goal over two games, but the attack has yet to find the back of the net, putting Revs fans on edge heading into Saturday’

Porter joined Bertrand, McKone, and Alex Barth after his training session on Thursday to reflect on his team’s uneven start to the 2025 campaign, and preview Saturday’s meeting with the red-hot Philadelphia Union, who currently sit atop the MLS table after two weeks.

“We’re pleased defensively over the first two games,” Porter said after a hard-fought 1-0 loss to Columbus in the home opener. “Obviously, on the road [in Nashville in the season opener], we got a clean sheet. Then we’re playing Columbus, which is the best attacking team over the last two years, they have the most goals scored over the last two years in our league. They were MLS Cup champions two years ago, Leagues Cup champions last year. We defended really well against them. They didn’t have much.”

With three newcomers on the backline in outside back Ilay Feingold and central defenders Brayan Ceballos and Mamadou Fofana, a stingy defense is an encouraging sign for Porter.

“We’re always going to be in every game, even against the best teams in the league, if we defend well,” Porter said. “Sometimes people want to make ‘defending’ a curse word, it’s a negative. I think it’s a real positive, it’s really important. We’re pleased with that.”

On the attacking end, Porter understands the fans’ impatience and shares their sense of urgency to get the attack clicking. However, the 11th-year coach has enough experience in the game to know that sometimes all it takes is one goal to open the floodgates. He hopes Saturday will be the night his highly touted attackers start finding their rhythm.

“The attack needs to get going. I’m not worried, I’m calm about it because we have good attacking players,” Porter said. “But that side of the ball, we need to continue to work on creating more chances and getting our first goal. I’ve seen this a lot, you get the first goal and the floodgates open a bit. Based on the week I’ve seen in training, I’m thinking this game we’ll hopefully open the floodgates.”

So, what’s the key to finding that breakthrough?

“The big thing is to not be tense,” Porter added. “In the attack, you need to be free and you need to be confident. You can’t be tense. If we have guys that are tense, trying too hard to score, it doesn’t work. You need to try easy in some ways.”

New England will have a difficult task on its hands this weekend with the Philadelphia Union, who have opened the season with two dominant wins, outscoring opponents 8-3 with the league’s most productive offense through Matchday 2.

“They’ve been a real surprise in the first two games” Porter said of Philly. “I think people thought they might be a little down this year and they’ve been one of the best teams in the first two games. They’ve scored eight goals and they’ve beaten two really good teams in Cincinnati and Orlando.”

Watch Saturday’s match on MLS Season Pass on the Apple TV app. Listen right here on 98.5 The Sports Hub HD2, with Brad Feldman and Charlie Davies in the booth.

Milliken: How did the Red Sox end up in this spot with Rafael Devers…

What the hell has happened in the last 48 hours? It was hard to find better vibes than what the Red Sox had cooking at the end of last week, as Alex Bregman arrived in Fort Myers fresh off signing his 3-year, $120 MM deal with visible excitement about his new home. At that time, the message from the organization had been about making Bregman the club’s second baseman, but that changed quickly once Alex Cora wouldn’t commit to a defensive position at Bregman’s introductory presser.

“We'll talk about that later on," Cora told the media. "Right now, there's a lot of stuff going on as far as where we're going to be roster-wise. We'll make the decision when we have to make it… He hasn't played second base in the big leagues. I do believe he can be a Gold Glove second baseman, too. There's other stuff that comes into play as far as roster construction and what's better for the team and what can be the best lineup. Competition comes into play."

If you want to go back to the first initial buzz between the Red Sox and Bregman, it started with Cora gushing about viewing Bregman as a second baseman at the Winter Meetings. He doubled down on that sentiment roughly a month later at Fenway Fest. “Raffy Devers is our third baseman. Alex was a Gold Glover at third base and we all know that, but in 2017 I had a conversation with him, and he needed to play third because it was Correa and Altuve. I always envisioned Alex as a Gold Glover second baseman. His size, the way he moves.”

That message from the Red Sox never changed once as they pursued Bregman. Jeff Passan reported within the hour of the agreement going public that the plan was for Bregman to be at second base. Not to mention, Breslow had emphasized at the end of season presser and again at the Winter Meetings that they hadn’t discussed moving Devers off of third base, despite there already being rumors about their interest in Nolan Arenado.

Whenever the question about a potential positional change for Devers came up, Breslow made it clear that those talks would happen internally before anything else. “Any conversation that we would have about [a position change] is going to happen internally before it goes external. At the same time, we saw progress [from Devers] on the defensive side, and it’s unclear to what extent the knees and the shoulders impacted his ability to defend at third [down the stretch]. But what we’re after is putting a winning team on the field. And we’ll have conversations as needed, as things go, but as of right now, that’s not where we are.”

From Devers’ standpoint, I don’t think it’s hard to see why he’s upset about the Red Sox dropping a positional change on him. He was never spoken to about moving off of third base all offseason, despite his bosses saying they’d talk things over with him if something changed. Instead, he heard exactly what the fans were told, which was that Devers was the third baseman and Bregman could win a Gold Glove at second.

As we know, the Red Sox weren’t seriously in on any of the DH/OF options like Teoscar Hernandez and Tyler O’Neill. In Jen McCaffrey’s story about how the Bregman deal went down, it was noted that after the Red Sox missed out on Juan Soto, they turned their focus to Bregman. Even Sean McAdam had written in November that Arenado was essentially a “Plan B” for the Red Sox, which was obviously the case as they waited out the Bregman sweepstakes over the last two months.

During that entire period, the Red Sox had the opportunity to at least approach the topic with Devers. That would’ve ensured they kept their word from earlier in the offseason, while also showing a level of respect towards Devers, who was reportedly promised he’d be the third baseman of the team for “several” years after signing his extension. Yet the organization dropped the bomb on him this past Friday after Bregman had already been signed and he had been in Fort Myers since the middle of January. 

While many didn’t take Devers’ agent, Nelson Montes de Oca, too seriously over the course of the offseason, he made it clear that his client expected to be at third base. Whenever rumors started to fly about Bregman or Arenado, Devers’ camp sent their message both locally and nationally. You even had, which pointed to him feeling disrespected by those saying he should be a DH moving forward. Beyond the poor communication, this is an example of just not reading or understanding your players correctly, which is a dangerous game to play with someone who just signed an 11-year, $331 MM extension.

If the front office felt it was that important to upgrade the infield defense, that should’ve been communicated at the start of the offseason. Strictly from a baseball perspective, Devers wouldn’t have much of an argument, but they chose to muddy the waters with their comments about his improved performance in 2024 and Bregman playing second base. Devers himself admitted that he thought he made strides last season, which only matches what the organization said about him.

I was shocked when the Red Sox applauded Devers' defense at the time. While he didn’t fall into his typical error funks for once, he registered a rough -6 Outs Above Average and -9 Defensive Runs Saved. So, why not be upfront when the data in front of you justifies the conversation you need to have with your best player? If you were that committed to Devers only swinging a bat moving forward, the best course of action would’ve been to let him process it away from everything. Even after coming up short on that front, they could’ve slow played the conversation early in camp to make up for the lack of communication in the first place. Nobody is a bigger Kristian Campbell fan than me, but why ruffle any feathers until he proves to be a real candidate for the Opening Day roster?

Make it appear as if Campbell was battling for a spot in left field. In that scenario, Jarren Duran could move to center field where he posted elite defensive numbers in 2024 and Ceddanne Rafaela works in a super-utility role. If Campbell decided to show out and Rafaela was deserving of an everyday role in center field, then the convo changes during camp and there’s direct proof of why that’s happening.

It wasn’t only Devers that was put in a tough spot with how the Red Sox framed things either. They made it pretty hard to envision where Masataka Yoshida would slot into things. That’s a major reason why I was cautious to pencil in Devers at DH and Bregman at 3B because if you hope for Yoshida to rebuild any of his value, that’s not happening with a lot of time on the bench. This was a way to put your best offensive lineup out there, keep everyone happy, and still improve your defense from where it was a year ago.

Does the poor communication from the Red Sox justify Devers completely shutting down the idea of being a DH or first baseman? No, not one bit. In a perfect world, you’d hope his sole focus was on the Red Sox being the best version of themselves, but he said himself that he feels like a victim of bad business. This is where Cora will have a chance to earn his money as a player’s manager, but it’s going to take some real work after contradicting himself the last few months.

The Red Sox can claim that Campbell forced them to reconsider their defensive alignment, but he hasn’t done anything to dramatically change their evaluation since the offseason started. If you felt this strongly about him playing against the Rangers on March 27th, why not approach things with that outlook all offseason? Talking out of both sides of your mouth did you no favors in this scenario and has now created an uncomfortable position for a team looking to solidify themselves as contenders in the American League.

Over the next 5 weeks, there’s going to be a focus on Red Sox spring training that hasn’t existed in a long time. Every defensive rep that Bregman and Devers takes is going to be questioned or noted. Same goes for Campbell, who will be in the midst of his first big league spring training. Even when it comes to the media, players are going to be asked about it constantly, which is where you risk guys stepping in it and starting fires (Yes, I’m talking about Triston Casas). That attention is a product of how the Red Sox handled things over the course of the offseason and into camp, which they can only blame themselves for.

At the end of the day, it’s Cora’s job to fill out the lineup. If he wants Devers at DH, that will be a pill he’s forced to swallow. It just feels like there was a simpler way to handle this situation that didn’t make Devers feel blindsided and defensive. The last thing the Red Sox need with their image on the upswing again is a public dispute with their longest-tenured player, who is right at the center of what should be a lengthy competitive window for the organization.

Tyler Milliken started out at the Sports Hub as an intern in 2020 for the Zolak & Bertrand program before eventually becoming the associate producer in late 2021. He often joins the baseball conversation on Zolak & Bertrand and is a contributor to The Baseball Hour throughout the season. Along with that, he has been a co-host on DraftKings Name Redacted Podcast with Jared Carrabis for the last two years, where they cover everything going on with the Red Sox. Born and raised in Brockton, he reps the city proudly.