FORT MYERS, Fla. — Alex Cora claimed John Henry was upset about Mo Salah and Liverpool’s loss to Everton, but there was no mistaking the Red Auerbach-esque celebratory message behind the photo of Red Sox principal owner smoking a cigar.

The Red Sox, after years of rebuilding and being careful, were finally back in business.

Linda Pizzuti Henry shared the photo to her Instagram Stories last Wednesday night, minutes after news broke of Alex Bregman’s Red Sox contract.

Red Sox fans had been waiting for this energy since 2019, and the response on X (formerly Twitter) was overwhelmingly positive.

“You know the Red Sox are back when John Henry has a cigar in his hand,” one fan wrote.

“I’ve got my complaints about Henry but this goes hard.”

“John Henry aura?!”

“Baller.”

Where has this Henry been for the last half-decade?

“John has a really great sense of humor,” team president and CEO Sam Kennedy told the Boston Herald on Monday. “He understands how passionate our fans are, and recognizes and understands when they’re upset, it’s because it’s rooted in the exact same interest that we have, which is to win.”

How shared that interest truly is has been up for debate for a while now, but it seems ownership and the public are at least in the same chapter again, if not on the same page just yet.

Yet now that the ship is righting, we’re reminded of a hard truth:

A victory omelet is not made without breaking eggs. Even the ones that were once considered prized Fabergés.

That was evident on Monday, when Rafael Devers, owner of the longest, richest contract in franchise history, said that he felt betrayed when Alex Cora and chief baseball officer Craig Breslow broached the topic of moving off third base. Devers explained that he’d been promised job security at the hot corner.

Cora’s response, in his own media availability immediately after? New regime, new rules.

“There’s a different leader here,” the manager said. “Chaim (Bloom) is in St. Louis.”

In other words, it was fine keeping Devers at third when the Red Sox weren’t expected to go far.

Harsh, but true. This also begs several questions. Namely, did the Red Sox ever really believe Devers should play third base long-term? If not, did they really give someone they believed should be a career DH more than $300 million?

Regardless, it’s clear this isn’t just the start of a new season, but the start of a new standard. For most of the last half-decade, this has been The Devers Show. He’s the one the Red Sox paid, even if it was something of a self-preservationist tactic; after trading Mookie Betts and shoving Xander Bogaerts out the door, losing Devers would have been the final straw, and he knew it, too.

For now, Devers is still the star of the show. He’s the big bucks. The only remaining member of the ‘18 team. And no one torments the Yankees the way he does.

Kennedy was careful to say that Devers is still at the “center” of everything the Red Sox are trying to build.

Perhaps it’s true.

But if they have their way, their center won’t be at third.

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