Former Auburn right-handed pitcher Ryan Watson has earned a place on the Boston Red Sox Opening Day roster, according to a Mar. 25 announcement. Watson becomes the 64th former Auburn player to reach Major League Baseball.
Watson’s achievement is notable as he is the 13th former Tiger to make it to the major leagues since the start of the 2020 season, which ranks as the third most among Southeastern Conference programs during this period. He also marks head coach Butch Thompson’s 26th pitcher to reach MLB, including 20 since 2014.
Watson played for Auburn from 2017 to 2020, recording a career earned run average of 4.67 over nearly ninety-one innings in fifty-eight appearances. During his junior year in 2019, he made twenty-three relief appearances and set personal bests with forty and two-thirds innings pitched and forty-one strikeouts. He contributed key scoreless innings during Auburn’s postseason run that year.
Before his senior season was cut short in early 2020, Watson posted a low ERA of just over one with seven strikeouts in five games. Although drafted out of high school, he chose to attend Auburn before signing as an undrafted free agent with Baltimore in 2020. In his minor league career, he has appeared in more than one hundred fifty games and recorded three hundred sixty-nine strikeouts.
Watson was selected by Oakland with the sixth pick of the Rule Five Draft in late 2025 but was then traded to Boston.
He will make his regular-season debut for Boston when they open against Cincinnati at Great American Ball Park.
