Josh Beckett, Adrian Gonzalez and Nick Punto fielded questions inside their new home stadium moments after their first game together as members of the Dodgers. Though Los Angeles beat the Marlins, 8-2, the players spoke about their time back in Boston.
Less than 24 hours earlier, the players were still officially members of the Red Sox. Then, on Saturday morning, the blockbuster 9-player deal with the Dodgers was made official.
"I had an awesome time in Boston. I had some tough times. There are some great people there," Beckett said, via ESPNBoston.com. "For me, I think it was time to move on and start this new chapter."
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When pressed to go into more detail on why it was the right time to move on, Beckett wouldn't.
"I don't know," he said. "I think it was time for both sides. I don't really have a reason."
Beckett did admit that all the players involved in the trade could have done a better job while with the Red Sox.
"We were very talented. We should've played better," Beckett said. "That's what I told Red Sox GM Ben Cherington. I don't think he wants to trade away everybody. I just think we made it impossible for him not to do that by not playing well and I'm as big a part of that as anybody. I know that that's not what they wanted to do. They wanted Adrian to stay and they wanted me to stay. They wanted Nick to stay and they wanted Carl Crawford to stay. But we just didn't do our jobs."
Gonzalez said that since last September, the Red Sox just couldn't put everything together at the same time.
"It was working pretty well until last September and then, when the hitters hit, we gave up runs; and when the pitchers pitched, we didn't hit," he said. "I don't know. It kind of went on from there. We made a lot of errors. We've said it all along, the players have, we just didn't play good baseball.
"Then all these other things came out. They were zero reason why we lost. But then this year we just couldn't put it together."
According to reports, a text message had been sent from Gonzalez's phone last month that precipitated a meeting with team ownership during which players reportedly tried to have manager Bobby Valentine fired. Gonzalez didn't explicitly mention those reports, but he did express disappointment with how things played out while he was with the Red Sox.
"Last year everybody was telling me about taking more of a leadership role at the end of the year," Gonzalez said. "This year I tried to be a little more outspoken. But whenever you say certain things or do certain things, they can fire back the wrong way.
"Everything I ever did was for the sake of winning and I think everybody in the clubhouse knows that. The way things were spun is unfortunate, but I guess, looking back, there are a couple things; well, one thing, that I shouldn't have done."