Stephen Gonsalves has called it a career.
The former Red Sox left-hander, once ranked among MLB’s top-100 pitching prospects, announced on Instagram that his Aug. 2 start for the Conspiradores de Querétaro in the Mexican League was the final outing of an 11-season professional run. He finished with 1,001 strikeouts across five major-league organizations and spent the last two seasons of his career in Mexico.
Gonsalves, 32, was drafted by the Twins in the fourth round of the 2013 MLB Draft out of Cathedral Catholic High School in San Diego. He moved steadily through Minnesota’s farm system and entered the 2018 season as one of baseball’s top-100 prospects before reaching the majors later that year.
His first big-league stretch came with Minnesota in 2018, when he pitched in seven games and made four starts. He went 2-2 with a 6.57 ERA, and the command issues that had followed him through the minors showed up fast: 22 walks and 16 strikeouts in 24 2/3 innings.
After moving through waivers and getting brief chances with the Mets and Red Sox organizations, Gonsalves got back to the majors in 2021. Boston used him in three relief appearances, and he gave up two runs over 4 1/3 innings. Those were the last major-league games of his career.
He kept grinding in affiliated ball after that. Gonsalves signed a minor-league deal with the Dodgers before the 2024 season, appeared in four Cactus League games, and then spent the first two months at Triple-A Oklahoma City. Even with a .219 average allowed in the Pacific Coast League and strikeout numbers better than a batter per inning, control problems caught up with him and he was released in May.
He finished 2024 with the Rockies’ Triple-A club in Albuquerque before heading to Mexico, where he made 23 appearances this year.
“From watching you debut at Target field to holding our son watching you pitch at Fenway, seeing all of your hard work pay off was truly the experience of a lifetime,” his wife, Hali, wrote on Instagram.
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