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New York Times
25-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Marcelo Mayer's chaotic MLB debut: Lost keys, a long car ride and a standing ovation
BOSTON — Early Saturday as the Triple-A Worcester Red Sox prepared to play a doubleheader at home, manager Chad Tracy called Marcelo Mayer into his office. He didn't have Mayer in the lineup for the first game. The reason? The big-league club was awaiting word on third baseman Alex Bregman's MRI. An injury might create a spot on the MLB roster. Not long after, Mayer got a second call into Tracy's office. Marcelo gets the call: — Red Sox (@RedSox) May 24, 2025 'He said something along the lines of, 'You're not playing. You'll play the second game, but not here. You'll be playing in Fenway,'' Mayer, 22, said. 'I just got the craziest rush through my whole body. It was a pretty cool thing.' Mayer, the No. 28 prospect in baseball according to The Athletic's Keith Law, was about to make his major-league debut. But first, he'd have to find his keys. Advertisement With the Red Sox playing in a doubleheader of their own against the Baltimore Orioles, Mayer rushed to pack his bags to make the 45-mile drive from Polar Park in Worcester to Fenway Park but realized he had no way to get there. 'I lost them, like, three weeks ago, and I never cared to look for them until I needed to,' Mayer lamented, as he stood in the Red Sox clubhouse moments after he'd arrived in Boston roughly 90 minutes before the first pitch of the second game. Nothing like pulling up to your big league debut. — Red Sox (@RedSox) May 24, 2025 Mayer left his car at Polar Park and one of the Worcester clubhouse assistants volunteered to drive him to Boston. Mayer had called his parents as soon as he heard about the promotion but spent the entire car ride buried in his phone, replying to a flood of texts congratulating him on his impending debut. By the time they got off the highway and into the city, though, the crowds around Fenway were thick as fans waited to enter for the second game. 'Honestly, I was just looking at my phone, so I kind of barely realized it,' he said. 'But the clubby, he was making jokes to get a police escort, to get everybody out of the way, because he was getting more nervous.' Needless to say, it was a chaotic day leading up to his debut and that was before the standing ovation when he stepped to the plate in the second inning. A large portion of the 34,604 fans in the Fenway crowd rose from their seats to watch Mayer take his first at-bat. He struck out looking on six pitches. 'I've never experienced anything like that in my life,' he said after Boston's 2-1 loss to Baltimore. 'Actually, I just got done texting my friends and parents about that moment. It's something I'll remember the rest of my life.' Mayer started at third base, a position he'd played at just six times professionally before Saturday, and batted sixth. He went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts and reached on a fielder's choice in the ninth. Advertisement After the Red Sox pinch hit for shortstop Trevor Story in the seventh inning, Mayer moved to short in the eighth inning but then shifted back to third in the ninth when David Hamilton entered as a pinch runner and took over at short. Mayer is expected to see time at second, third and short as the Red Sox mix and match in the infield without Bregman. 'My job here is to do whatever I can help the team win,' Mayer said. 'I'm gonna go out every single day, give it 100 percent, give it my all, and hopefully that's enough.' His day at the plate wasn't what he'd wanted, but despite all the chaos leading up to it, he said he was calm. 'I wouldn't say I was nervous,' he said. 'I just feel like I tried to do too much. I feel like next time I've got to do a better job with that. But with that being said, I've never experienced anything like that (game). So it was really fun.' Having spent all of spring training with the big-league club, Mayer and fellow top prospects Roman Anthony and Kristian Campbell grew close with their big-league teammates. When Mayer arrived Saturday, there was a bittersweet juxtaposition in the clubhouse as players hugged him and clapped his back, excited for his promotion while also acknowledging the loss of Bregman, who spoke quietly with the media about a severe quad injury. Bregman missed 58 games in 2021 with a similar injury. As the Red Sox plan to be without Bregman for an extended period, Mayer figures to be a key part of the club. Mayer undoubtedly had pictured his big-league debut countless times over the years. How it played out in reality Saturday wasn't quite what he'd envisioned. He didn't get the big hit, and the Red Sox as a whole failed to capitalize on seven scoreless innings from starter Lucas Giolito in the loss. But after years of waiting, Mayer has a new home in Boston and plenty of work ahead of him. 'It's the big leagues,' manager Alex Cora said of Mayer's day. 'Great experience for him (today). Played good defense, obviously, offensively not much happened, but he's a big leaguer now, can't take that away from him.'
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Red Sox prospect Marcelo Mayer gets a ride to Fenway Park for his big league debut
BOSTON (AP) — Marcelo Mayer, Boston's No. 2 overall prospect, was promoted to the Red Sox and needed to get a ride to Fenway Park to start against the Baltimore Orioles on Saturday. The reason he didn't drive himself: He lost his car keys 'like three weeks ago.' Mayer was promoted from Triple-A Worcester when third baseman Alex Bregman was placed on the 10-day injured list with a significant right quad strain. Mayer said a "clubby' drove him to Boston while he was answering text messages for the approximately 45-minute commute. 'I never cared to look for them until I needed to,' he said, smiling. Mayer was in the starting lineup for the second game of a doubleheader against the Orioles, playing third base and batting sixth. Drafted No. 4 overall in 2021, the 22-year-old Mayer made it to Fenway after the Red Sox beat Baltimore, 6-5, in the opener of the split doubleheader. 'It feels good. It's something I worked for my whole life,' Mayer said, standing in the middle of the clubhouse before the second game. 'He brought me in (the office) in the morning and told me I was scratched in the first game,' Mayer said of what Worcester manager Chad Tracy told him. 'Just to see what was going on (in Boston), then he brought me in a little later and said something of the lines of: 'You'll play the second game but not here, you're playing in Fenway.'' He then spent the time answering messages during his ride to Boston and didn't see the traffic. 'I used it as a reason to kind of chill and answer all my family and all my friends,' he said, before saying the first one he told was his dad. 'It was surreal,' he said. 'The emotions were still pretty high. It's something that me and my family have worked toward since I ever started playing the game. It was a moment I definitely wanted to share with them before I got out to the media.' ___ AP MLB: Ken Powtak, The Associated Press
Associated Press
24-05-2025
- Sport
- Associated Press
Red Sox prospect Marcelo Mayer gets a ride to Fenway Park for his big league debut
BOSTON (AP) — Marcelo Mayer, Boston's No. 2 overall prospect, was promoted to the Red Sox and needed to get a ride to Fenway Park to start against the Baltimore Orioles on Saturday. The reason he didn't drive himself: He lost his car keys 'like three weeks ago.' Mayer was promoted from Triple-A Worcester when third baseman Alex Bregman was placed on the 10-day injured list with a significant right quad strain. Mayer said a 'clubby' drove him to Boston while he was answering text messages for the approximately 45-minute commute. 'I never cared to look for them until I needed to,' he said, smiling. Mayer was in the starting lineup for the second game of a doubleheader against the Orioles, playing third base and batting sixth. Drafted No. 4 overall in 2021, the 22-year-old Mayer made it to Fenway after the Red Sox beat Baltimore, 6-5, in the opener of the split doubleheader. 'It feels good. It's something I worked for my whole life,' Mayer said, standing in the middle of the clubhouse before the second game. 'He brought me in (the office) in the morning and told me I was scratched in the first game,' Mayer said of what Worcester manager Chad Tracy told him. 'Just to see what was going on (in Boston), then he brought me in a little later and said something of the lines of: 'You'll play the second game but not here, you're playing in Fenway.'' He then spent the time answering messages during his ride to Boston and didn't see the traffic. 'I used it as a reason to kind of chill and answer all my family and all my friends,' he said, before saying the first one he told was his dad. 'It was surreal,' he said. 'The emotions were still pretty high. It's something that me and my family have worked toward since I ever started playing the game. It was a moment I definitely wanted to share with them before I got out to the media.' ___ AP MLB:
Boston Globe
24-05-2025
- Sport
- Boston Globe
Red Sox calling up Marcelo Mayer, top infield prospect, to majors
Mayer is hitting .271/.347/.471 with nine homers — most by any player in the Red Sox system — for the WooSox. He'd also driven in 43 runs, 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.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 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. Advertisement '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 WooSox manager Chad 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 overall 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. Advertisement With Triston Casas having suffered a season-ending patellar tendon tear in early May, Mayer's progression through the minors was impeded by injuries that limited him to fewer than 100 games of 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. Related : 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, but 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. Advertisement '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
