BOSTON — Red Sox prospect Ceddanne Rafaela belted 14 home runs in 48 games for Triple-A Worcester. It was only a matter of time before he hit his first big league blast.
Rafaela led off the bottom of the first inning Tuesday with his first MLB homer. He connected on the first pitch he saw, an inside 94.2 mph four-seam fastball from Yankees left-handed starter Carlos Rodón, and sent it 400 feet to left field. It hit off one of the light towers above the Green Monster.
Rafaela’s blast left his bat with a 103.8 mph exit velocity. Watch it here.
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The Red Sox promoted the 22-year-old Aug. 28. Baseball America ranked him No. 71 on its preseason Top 100 list and lists him as Boston’s No. 6 prospect overall. He’s 9-for-25 (.360 batting average) with a .407 on-base percentage, .560 slugging percentage, .967 OPS, two doubles, one homer, two RBIs, two walks, 11 strikeouts and one stolen base in 13 games for Boston.
He began the season at Double-A Portland, then crushed Triple-A pitching after his June 28 promotion to the WooSox. Rafaela slashed .312/.370/.618/.988 with 14 homers, 13 doubles, three triples, 40 runs, 42 RBIs, six stolen bases, 12 walks and 48 strikeouts in 48 games for Worcester.
Rafaela is a plus defender in center field and at shortstop. The Red Sox also might try to get him reps at second base in winter ball.
“If he goes, probably that’s going to be the case,” manager Alex Cora said Tuesday. “If he goes, yeah. We’ll talk about it. Last year, he played a little bit down there. It was beneficial for him. This year, he has a lot of at-bats already and we’ll see how he finishes. That’s something we’ll talk about in the upcoming days.”
