Red Sox continue to have a Matt Dermody problem
Dermody will pitch for the WooSox on Wednesday in Norfolk - who’ll celebrate Pride Night at their ballpark
The Red Sox are spiraling out of playoff contention, they’re buried in last place the American League East and hopes of the Wild Card are dwindling away, one series loss at a time.
However, secondary to that, the Red Sox have a public relations problem. No, not the bad play on the field or questionable decisions on the roster construction of this team.
It’s Matt Dermody.
Why is he still in the Sox organization?
Look, 99.9% of the time I stick to sports, at the end of the day, it’s the one commonality that people have. Sports allow us to press pause on the rigors of the daily grind of everyday life.
Having said that… the Sox fumbled the bag with this Dermody situation.
Last week, the Sox recalled Dermody from Triple-A Worcester to make a spot start in Cleveland. On the surface, you’d think ok, no big deal right?
Nope.
Instead, his start caught mainstream attention for a homophobic tweet he made back in 2021.
Sean McAdam of MassLive wrote a piece that exposed the whole Dermody tweet situation and acknowledged in the article that the Red Sox were aware of his conduct on social media.
On June 26, 2021, Dermody tweeted:
“#PrideMonth. Homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God. They will go to hell. This is not my opinion, but the #Truth. Read 1 Corinthians 6:9. May we all examine our hearts, ask Jesus to forgive us and repent of all our sins. I love you all in Christ Jesus!”
The left-hander doubled down on his tweet and replied, “I am not a homophobic (sic).”
Dermody pitched for the Sox last Thursday, Guardians third baseman Jose Ramírez homered twice of off him. The southpaw tossed four innings surrendering four hits, three earned runs while walking one and striking out a batter.
Boston designated Dermody for assignment following the game. The 32-year-old gave reasoning to his tweet to reporters.
“It was two years ago,” Dermody said about the tweet after Boston’s loss Thursday. “I’ve got to add some context into that. So I first read the Bible in December 2020. I couldn’t tell you a Bible verse before that — before I was age 30. When I read it, I was super convicted of myself and the life that I was living. And I knew immediately in my heart that I wasn’t going to make it to Heaven. And so it really affected me and I believed it with all my heart. The Bible says be born again. So I was born again in December. And then a few months later I went to Japan and that’s when I started reading all the way through the Bible more and more and the love of God seeped into my heart and it was less about me now but it was about everybody else in the world.
“And the first commandment, the most important commandment that God gives is to love him and to love our neighbor as ourself,” Dermody added. “And I remember if I was truly loving my neighbor, I would tell people what I believed. And I believe there is an afterlife. ... I do regret the tweet in a sense that it came off as hurtful and it hurt a lot of people. And that’s the last thing I want to do is hurt people. A lot of people think that I’m against a certain group of people or what not. But I’m for everybody making it to Heaven. That’s my goal as a Christian and as a teammate and as a family member, a dad.”
When Dermody tweeted back in 2021, he was pitching in Japan as a member of the Saitama Seibu Lions. The team issued an apology for his tweet back in 2021.
The question remains as to why Dermody was even elevated to the big league roster in the first place?
Part of the reason has been the lack of success and consistency by most of the Triple-A starters this season. Chris Murphy was called up and pitched out of the bullpen the night prior, he looked great by the way, Bryan Mata is on the injured list, Brandon Walter has struggled, leaving Dermody as the best option out of Worcester.
In an environment where businesses are extremely cognizant and aware of how their brand looks, having Dermody start based off his tweets, the Red Sox through massive caution to the wind.
Plain and simple, Boston failed to read the room.
Chaim Bloom acknowledged the team failed to do proper checks on the player prior to signing him to a minor league deal.
“It’s important to us that he had taken the tweet down and important why he had done it,” Bloom said in a statement. “I talked to him personally about that and what he told me was that it really came down to two things. One, he didn’t realize that his words would be hurtful and he didn’t want to hurt anybody and when he realized that they were, he took (the post) down.
“He also understood that it’s not the right use of his platform. He knows he made a mistake tweeting that. That’s why he took it down. Obviously, that doesn’t mean that we endorse anything he said or anything he believes. But the fact of the matter is, if we’re committed to creating an (inclusive) environment, it’s not right for us to police what people believe.
“We do need to expect that everybody here is going to be committed to creating an inclusive and safe environment and so understanding why he had taken the tweet down and that his words were hurtful, and knowing that he doesn’t want to hurt anybody and that he believes in a safe environment, was important here.”
Following Dermody’s DFA from the Red Sox, he was outrighted to Triple-A Worcester.
He will also start on Wednesday night against the Norfolk Tides, who ironically will be hosting their Pride Night at the ballpark.
It’s mind-boggling how the organization would allow him to pitch on a night where another team is going to celebrate inclusion and diversity amongst the same group of people he tweeted will go to hell when they die.
This all circles back to the question posed earlier, why is Dermody still in the organization?
Take away the public relations nightmare this situation has been for the Sox. Dermody is not someone this club is building around for the future, he’s a journeyman fringe AAAA pitcher. These players are a dime a dozen and he could easily be replaced by someone who’ll someday throw impactful and meaningful innings for the WooSox and Red Sox.
The team is now reportedly “re-assessing” the Dermody situation, according to Alex Speier of The Boston Globe.
“We pride ourselves on doing the right due diligence so that we can have the right conversations around these things. We realized as this was unfolding [after the callup] that a process that is normally pretty robust missed some things,” said Bloom to The Boston Globe. “There were other concerning things on social media. We usually don’t miss these types of things. In this case we did.”
Bloom acknowledged that they’re getting a better scope of the situation and will be re-evaluating what the appropriate next steps are.
“We’re getting our arms around what the right steps are with respect to the new info, or at least the info that’s new to us,” said Bloom. “That’s obviously a process that we’ll need to go through to figure out the best way to address it and take it into account. We certainly take it very seriously.”
It’s pretty simple, the Red Sox need to release Dermody and begin to put this public relations nightmare behind them. It starts with pulling him from his start on Pride Night from Norfolk. If the Red Sox let him start, it’s just another misstep in this whole Dermody situation, one that should have never happened in the first place.
Follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisHenrique
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