Boston Red Sox fans fume seeing championship trio in Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres uniforms: "I was having a good Monday up until this"

These are hard times for the Boston Red Sox. Last season saw the team drop from a 2021 American League Championship Series appearance to the bottom of the AL Eastern Division.

Then came an offseason that saw Boston lose another of its homegrown stars as shortstop Xander Bogaerts left for the San Diego Padres via free agency.

While the Red Sox managed to lock up another homegrown star in third baseman Rafael Devers for the long term, there is still very little optimism in Beantown for the upcoming season.

To add to this discontent, Monday's spring training matchup between the Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers gave the media a chance to twist the knife. A photo was snapped of Bogaerts talking shop with J.D. Martinez and Mookie Betts of the Dodgers. All three were crucial parts of Boston's 2018 World Series championship squad.

Seeing their former heroes now basking in the sun while wearing the uniforms of two of the MLB's top title contenders was not what Boston Red Sox fans really needed to see at the end of a long winter.

Those of you that know any members of Red Sox Nation may want to check on them after seeing this. There are some Boston fans in a very dark place right now.

The Boston Red Sox seem very far from the team's latest glory days in 2018. However, the squad has gone up and down in the past three seasons, sandwiching an 2021 ALCS run in-between two last-place division finishes in 2020 and 2022. There's one word that is being uttered by many a Red Sox fan today: "Pain."

In baseball, as in life, enjoy the good times – because you never know what tomorrow may bring. Boston Red Sox fans could hardly predict in their World Series glory that this photo would be a hard fact of life just a few years later.

Steep decline for Boston Red Sox since 2018

Mookie Betts of the Boston Red Sox and NESN host Guerin Austin are doused in Gatorade.

While the Boston Red Sox signed Japanese outfielder Masataka Yoshida and closer Kenley Jansen this off-season, losing shortstop Xander Bogaerts seemed to overshadow the team's entire offseason. The $313.5 million contract extension signed by Devers did little to quell the fanbase's displeasure at the team's rapid decline throughout 2022.

Martinez left for Los Angeles on Christmas Eve, signing a one-year, $10 million contract with the Dodgers.

Most Red Sox fans still point to the loss of Betts in February 2020. With Betts and Boston at an impasse over a contract extension for the tremendously popular player, the Red Sox traded the 2018 AL Most Valuable Player to the Dodgers for a trio of prospects: outfielder Alex Verdugo, shortstop Jeter Downs and catcher Connor Wong.

Verdugo has been a Boston regular but has not lived up to his top prospect billing, Wong is projected as a strong-defending backup and Downs was released this winter.