The Boston Red Sox won the AL East in 2017. They won it by a hair, but they won it nonetheless. In spite of that team-wide success, the season was less than enjoyable, according to outfielder Mookie Betts and shortstop Xander Bogaerts. Betts and Bogaerts confessed that there was an air of uneasiness in the clubhouse, even though the team was rather successful.

"I mean, we all know. We all know what was going on," Bogaerts told reporters on Thursday at the team's spring training facility in Fort Myers, per ESPN. "I don't think I really want to get into details. The quicker we move on is the better for all of us."

Betts and Bogaerts are obviously two of the leaders of the Red Sox. Betts and Bogaerts were two of the top three players in at-bats, playing day in and day out. Bogaerts' batting average fell down to .273, and the Red Sox seemed rife with controversy all season.

First there was Adam Jones alleging racist taunts from fans at Fenway Park, with Jones saying it wasn't anything new. Betts was one of the players to reach out to Jones after the incident.

Then there was the bizarre escalating feud between the Orioles and Red Sox, which started with Manny Machado spiking Dustin Pedroia in April. When Matt Barnes threw a pitch behind Machado's head, Pedroia yelled at Machado that he told the team not to throw at him. His teammates may not have loved the deflection, but Pedroia's stance was clear after the game, as he called it a "bad slide." It got worse, of course, as Chris Sale also threw at Machado, which led to Machado ranting against Boston and left fans hoping to god that someone would just plunk Machado to end it.

The drama continued, with David Price cutting off the media in games that he didn't start in another outburst, and then of course there was smart watch-gate. All of this to say: The Red Sox never felt like a winning team last year. With a Yankees team that was genuinely fun to watch nipping at their heels all season, it felt like the first time that the Yankees were the upstart, ragtag bunch, while the Sox were just the team that supposed to win, and acted like it. Not in a professional, "been there before" way. But a petulant, "what is success?" way. John Farrell spent the entire season on the hot seat and was fired when the Red Sox lost 3-1 to the Astros, a series that almost felt like a mercy killing by the end of it.

"I think [there was] just tension in the locker room as far as if things were down," Betts said, via ESPN. "We could have had more fun. Through the rough times, I think those are the times when we could have had a little more fun instead of being down so much."

"We had a lot of stuff going on last year, to be honest," Bogaerts added. "We all live and learn. We can't just sit back and keep reminding ourselves about the past. That's not something we want to do."

The hope now, of course, is that new manager Alex Cora can change the culture.

"I'm going to approach things a little differently as far as, if I'm not playing well or if we're losing or whatnot, I can do my best to try and find a way to get everybody back happy, smiling, exciting and going to play," Betts said. "I think everybody knows that wasn't always in play [last year]. There was times where we lost a couple games in a row, and we weren't necessarily down, but we were kind of pressing to try and get back to the winning side instead of just letting it happen, letting the game play out."

It's no mean feat, and Cora has a lot of work to do. The hope now is that the Red Sox can be restored to winners. They don't need that restoration on the field, but off it, there's clearly a lot that has to change to make winning more fun and losing more palatable.