Red Sox prospect Marcelo Mayer gets a ride to Fenway Park for his big league debut

BOSTON — 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 night for his major league debut.

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 right quad strain.

Mayer said a ''clubby'' drove him to Boston while he was answering text messages for the approximately 45-minute commute.

Mayer played third base, batted sixth and went 0 for 4 in Boston's 2-1 loss in the nightcap of a split doubleheader.

When he came to the plate for his first at-bat, he was greeted with a loud ovation with many fans standing.

''It was awesome,'' he said. ''I've never experienced anything like that before in my life. I actually just got done texting my friends and parents about that moment. That's something I'll remember the rest of my life.''

He felt he may have been too anxious, at times, at the plate.

''I felt like I tried to do too much with runners on base,'' he said. ''I feel like next time I've got to do a better job than that.''

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.''

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