The Red Sox called up heralded infield prospect Marcelo Mayer from Triple A Worcester, starting him at third base for his major-league debut in the second game of a Saturday doubleheader at Fenway Park.
WooSox manager Chad Tracy told reporters in Worcester on Saturday that he’d delivered the news to the 22-year-old, whom Baseball America recently ranked as the game’s No. 9 prospect, before that team’s doubleheader at Polar Park.
“[Tracy] told me that I was going to play Game 2, but it wasn’t going to be here,” Mayer told reporters before leaving Worcester for Fenway Park. “Just that rush I felt is something I wish everybody could experience. I’ve never experienced anything like that.”
Mayer batted sixth against the Orioles at Fenway Park. He struck out in his debut plate appearance, caught looking a full-count sinker.
Mayer is hitting .271/.347/.471 with nine homers — most by any player in the Red Sox system — for the WooSox. His 43 RBIs are the most in Triple A.
Though he got off to a slow start this season, Mayer went on a tear in mid-April. From April 18 through May 9, he hit .357/.427/.671 with five homers and 11 extra-base hits in 18 games. Mayer described the stretch as “probably the best couple of weeks I’ve ever had in my career.”
While he’s tailed off since, Mayer has shown the attributes — elite bat speed and the ability to drive the ball to all fields, as well as the ability to handle both middle infield spots — to validate his status as one of the top prospects in the sport.
“When he’s going good, feeling good, and gets a good pitch to hit, he can do things with it that most people can’t,” said Tracy.
Gifted with a sweet lefthanded swing, Mayer has looked like a future star dating to a standout career at Eastlake High School in Chula Vista, Calif. The Red Sox took him with the No. 4 pick of the 2021 draft, and Mayer has progressed steadily, gaining strength and explosiveness that have aided his emerging power and his ability to maintain the range to handle shortstop, third, and second in the minors.
After Triston Casas suffered a season-ending patellar tendon tear in early May, the Red Sox boosted Mayer’s playing time at second base at a time when they also started having Kristian Campbell work out at first base. However, it was Alex Bregman‘s quadriceps injury against the Orioles on Friday that opened the door for Mayer’s callup.
Mayer’s progression through the minors was impeded by injuries that limited him to fewer than 100 games in each of his first three full professional seasons, with wrist issues slowing him in 2022, a shoulder injury from a base-running tumble cutting short his 2023 campaign, and a lower-back strain wiping out his final two months of 2024.
But after a healthy offseason, Mayer had a dazzling spring training.
Mayer acknowledged that he believed he should have been on the Opening Day roster — “I felt like I deserved a spot on that roster given the way that I played, but things don’t always happen the way you want them to,” he said before the WooSox opener.
He quickly left behind the disappointment.
“To me, every single day that I wake up, I’m a big leaguer. That’s just the way that I go about it, the way that I approach everything that I do,” said Mayer. “Whether I’m one day away from the big leagues or five years away from the big leagues, the work stays the same. When I’m at the field, I’m trying to get better that second.
“I am where my feet are,” he added at Polar Park on May 20. “I’m having a great time here with all my teammates, and I’m working really hard wherever that is. I’m super excited for what’s to come.”
Now, his feet will be on a big league field.
Alex Speier can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @alexspeier.
