Red Sox prospect Triston Casas was wearing tight baseball pants the first time he met David Ortiz.
“I’ve only met him one time in the dugout of my first spring training,” Casas said during a Zoom call Wednesday from Red Sox’s Winter Warm-up camp at JetBlue Park. “It was actually my first major league spring training game on St. Patrick’s Day. Spring training of 2019. Coincidentally, earlier in the day we had been doing a sliding practice out on field four (at the JetBlue Park complex). I had put on a pretty baggy pair of pants over the pair of pants I was wearing.”
Casas — who Baseball America ranks No. 15 on its Top 100 prospect list — of course removed the baggy pants for the game.
“(Manager) Alex Cora was joking around with Papi about my pants because I guess they were a little tight,” Casas said. “They didn’t fit exactly like he would wear his pants.
“So Cora called me over to him and Papi told me, ‘Hey, we need to fix your pants. We need to get you a little more swag,’” Casas recalled.
Casas joked with the Red Sox legend, telling him he was wearing Ortiz-baggy like pants earlier in the day during the sliding drill.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, coincidentally, I was sliding with your old pants on field four earlier today,” Casas said. “He got a pretty good laugh out of that. Outside of that, it was the only time I met him. But I’ve heard a lot of great things about him.”
Casas said it was awesome to see Ortiz elected to the Hall of Fame on Tuesday.
“I know how much he means to the city of Boston,” Casas said. “And I know how much winning he has done as a Red Sox. I can only hope to emulate a little bit of that. Even if I come close to half of it, it will be an accomplished career because he’s done so much for the game and for Red Sox nation that I try to represent as well as I can. He’s a good figure to follow. Hopefully, I get to talk to him a little bit as the years go on and get to pick his brain about how to be such a clutch player and winning person.”
Casas is expected to begin the 2022 season at Triple-A Worcester.
He finished 2021 by playing nine games at Worcester (.866 OPS). He batted .279 with a .394 on-base percentage, .484 slugging percentage, .877 OPS, 14 homers, 15 doubles, three triples, 63 runs and 59 RBIs in 86 games (371 plate appearances) between Portland and Worcester. He then went 29-for-78 (.372) with seven extra-base hits in 21 games in the Arizona Fall League.
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