New Hampshire’s Mickey Gasper shines in Red Sox debut

New Hampshire native Mickey Gasper, a 28-year-old catcher and Merrimack High School grad, has joined baseball’s major leagues.

Gasper was called up to the Red Sox on Monday after spending six seasons in the minor leagues. In his first game with the Red Sox, he already made an impact. He helped the Red Sox win in a critical moment against the Texas Rangers. Gasper entered the game in the 10th inning, when it was tied 4-4. Gasper drew a walk, which loaded the bases before outfielder Rob Refsnyder delivered a hit for the team to win 5-4.

“He took a really, really good slider, maybe low,” Refsnyder said of Gasper’s performance after the game. “Most guys in that moment debut, I know I would have swung over top of that one. So a lot of credit to the player development, the Triple-A staff getting him ready, but all the credit, a lot of the credit goes to him. I mean, that was a huge at-bat.”

The big lights didn’t phase Gasper. 

​​“I was so calm up there,” said Gasper. “I don’t know what was going through my head. I just felt good. I guess I felt like I was at home.”

As a New Hampshire native, Gasper has spent plenty of time at Fenway, though he didn’t cheer for the Red Sox as a kid. He was a Yankees fan because his parents are from New Jersey. 

“(Because of) work my parents ended up bringing us up to New Hampshire where I was surrounded by Red Sox fans,” Gasper told MassLive in January. “And I was able to hold my ground even through 2004 when I was in fourth grade and my heart was broken.”

Boston selected him from the Yankees as part of the Rule 5 draft in December.  

Gasper, who played at Bryant University in Rhode Island, started the year in Double-A Portland before he became a standout at Triple-A Worcester. He ranked second in all of minor-league baseball this season with a 1.179 on base percentage, and his .402 batting average ranked fifth in the minors.

“Mickey, he earned it,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said before the game, according to MassLive. “The at-bats for everything I hear, they’ve been amazing. Not too much swing and miss. Not too many chases. He’s versatile. He can catch. He can play second. He can play first. Just one of those that obviously where we’re at, it made sense to get him here. We’ll see what happens in the upcoming days.”

Red Sox infielder Nick Sogard, who was also recently promoted after playing with Gasper in Worcester, praised Gaspers’s game.

“I think having him as a teammate kind of motivates you to play hard beside him,” Sogard said, according to MassLive. “He’s a great guy off the field. And then come game-time, he’s kind of an intense player.  Someone who you know is locked in every pitch and fighting for every inch. Yeah, he’s a really good hitter. Line drive hitter. Both sides of the plate. An on-base machine. He can mix in a homer here and there, too.”  

Gasper was promoted to help the Red Sox after key player Jarren Duran was suspended for two games after calling a fan a homophobic slur.

The team is young. Gasper is one of 10 out of the 26 players on the roster that had spent at least five games in Triple-A Worcester this season.

“Man, we’re playing with kids, playing with kids in the middle of trying to make it to the playoffs,” Cora said. “You look around, you’re like, ‘Wow, this is really happening here.’ They’re enjoying the moment.”