Lesson Learned: Red Sox’s Marcelo Mayer Shoulders Blame For Injury

Boston Red Sox prospect Marcelo Mayer will see his development halted for the remainder of 2023, with a shoulder injury keeping him sidelined for the final few weeks of the season.

The Red Sox ruled Mayer out for the season on Sept. 6, with the 20-year-old shortstop being placed on the injured list with shoulder inflammation and foregoing the final 11 games of Double-A Portland's season. Mayer was transferred to Fort Myers, Florida, in order to get ahead of the recovery process, a decision that turned out to be three months too late.

In a recent appearance on the "Baseball Isn't Boring" podcast, Mayer explained when he suffered the shoulder injury and why he ultimately is shouldering (get it?) the blame for the Red Sox's belated response.

"I'll go back to the day it happened," Mayer told host Rob Bradford. "It was May 7, we were playing in High-A in Asheville. I was 3-for-3 and I needed a triple for the cycle. I ended up hitting a ball in the gap. I tried to leg it out for the triple. I ended up stumbling past second base and fell. I didn't really feel it on impact and then the next day I wake up and can't lift my shoulder at all. I ended up taking that week off, come back playing a little too soon because the competitor in me wanted to play and didn't want to rest. So, I got used to playing hurt and ever since then it became a cycle and never really got better.

"It's a good learning lesson on my end. Looking back at it, I should have definitely taken care of it. You're here to play and obviously it didn't work out for me because I thought it was going to get better over time, but it just kept getting worse and worse and worse, so I decided to say something to the trainers."

"Looking back at it, I should have definitely taken care of it."

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Red Sox prospect Marcelo Mayer on his shoulder injury

The decision to tell trainers about his injury proved to be the final nail in the coffin of Mayer's season. It wasn't exactly a season worth continuing with the injury, however, as he saw his numbers dip considerably following the May 7 injury.

In 111 plate appearances before the injury, Mayer slashed .337/.414/.582 with 15 extra-base hits and a 21.6% strikeout percentage, according to Ian Cundall of SoxProspects.com. In 243 plate appearances after, he slashed .190/.256/.366 with 19 extra-base hits and a 25.5% strikeout percentage.

"When it comes to my swing, my swing was just giving out every single time," Mayer told Bradford. "The littlest thing can impact your swing and you start compensating somewhere else, which is not a good thing, which is why I think I learned a lot from this experience. But as a player, there is one place you want to be and it's on the field."

The Red Sox are hoping Mayer can find his way back to the field when they open spring training in 2024, as rest and recovery are hopefully all it will take to get baseball's No. 11 prospect on the diamond.