Red Sox trade addition Curtis Mead removed from his first game with team after HBP

WEST SACRAMENTO — Newly-acquired Curtis Mead left his Red Sox debut during the fifth inning Monday due to a left wrist contusion after getting hit with a pitch earlier in the game.

Athletics starter Jack Perkins hit Mead on the left wrist with a 94.9 mph four-seam fastball to lead off the fourth inning.

Mead remained in the game and played at second base in the bottom of the fourth inning. But the Red Sox replaced him at second base with Anthony Seigler to begin the bottom of the fifth inning.

Boston acquired Mead from the Nationals for starting pitcher Connelly Early on Saturday night.

“I was shocked, excited, a bunch of different emotions,” Mead said Monday. “Just really excited to be here. And I didn’t sleep a whole lot Saturday night.”

The former Baseball America Top 100 prospect is enjoying a breakout season. He belted 17 home runs, 17 doubles and one triple while slugging .500 in 87 games for the Nationals this season. He ranks in the 85th percentile among major league hitters in expected weighted on-base percentage (.358).

His success this year comes after struggles with two other teams. He batted just .238 with a .629 OPS in 111 games for the Rays from 2023-25, then .240 with a .584 OPS in 41 games for the White Sox in 2025.

“I obviously was reasonably disappointed with the short kind of stints that I’d got in the big leagues and how they went,” Mead said. “But my belief, I guess, never really wavered. And I felt like if I got the opportunity to play more regularly, that my performance would be a little bit more consistent. And so it’s kind of been cool to get that opportunity in Washington and make the most of it and then ultimately end up in a place like this.”

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