Multiple industry sources said that Raquel Ferreira, a Red Sox executive vice president and assistant general manager, will converse with top Mets officials in the coming days, with Boston’s blessing. Whether that conversation qualifies as an “interview” could be in the eye of the beholder. It’s believed that the talk will be more of a “Get to know you” session, in which both sides will determine whether they want to take this idea any further.

Ferreira, a Red Sox employee since 1999 and a Rhode Island native, is not a slam dunk to take the job if the Mets offered it to her, multiple sources said. She holds a substantive enough role with the Red Sox that when they fired their president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski in September 2019, Ferreira became part of a four-person group (which ironically also featured Zack Scott, whom the Mets just dismissed as their acting general manager) to run the club on an interim basis until the eventual hiring of Chaim Bloom. Ferreira has a hand in all areas of Boston’s baseball operations.

When Bloom came aboard, the Red Sox elevated Ferreira to an assistant GM position, making her the fourth woman to hold that title in baseball’s history. Since then, one of those four, Kim Ng (an assistant GM with the Yankees and Dodgers), became a trailblazer when the Marlins hired her as the first female general manager in any North American professional men’s sport. Appointing a woman to such a powerful position would carry additional weight for the Mets, who repeatedly drew heat over the past year regarding misbehaving male employees.

According to a report by the New York Times, five women will serve as the on-air broadcast team a game between the Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays on July 20, marking the first time an all-women team has handled the entire broadcast for a Major League game.

Orioles radio play-by-play announcer Melanie Newman will be on the call for the game, with MLB.com writer Sarah Langs serving as the color analyst. Alana Rizzo will be the on-field reporter, with Heidi Watney and Lauren Gardner anchoring both pre and post-game coverage.

The all-female commentary team will be serving on a prominent matchup, as the Orioles and the Rays will be playing in the MLB Game of the Week on YouTube. While female commentators have become commonplace at both the major and minor league levels, this marks what is believed to be the first time an all-female crew has called a game at the Major League level.

Kaplan was cut again, but she didn’t give up on the game she has loved since she started playing at 5 years old. After graduating from high school last spring and playing summer ball, Kaplan enrolled at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, Md. She showed up at fall baseball workouts and made an immediate impression on the school’s new head coach. This spring, Kaplan made the Riverhawks baseball roster, becoming the only woman to pitch in the National Junior College Athletic Association. While facing top Division I NCAA prospects, the lefthander struck out 11 batters in 11 2/3 innings of work in her first season. Her coaches and teammates welcomed her.

“I knew a few guys on the college team already from playing with them or against them throughout the years,” Kaplan says. “The ones who had no idea who I was, once they saw me hit and pitch for the first time they were like, ‘O.K. She’s good. That’s all I need to know.’ They’ve all been great to me and have been very supportive.”

Kaplan, one of a handful of women playing baseball at the collegiate level, is part of a select but growing group that also includes Kelliann Jenkins, a pitcher for Chatham University in Pittsburgh; Jazzmine Rivera, a pitcher for Harry S. Truman College in Chicago; Marika Lyszczyk, a catcher and pitcher for Rivier University in Nashua, N.H.; Beth Greenwood, a catcher for the University of Rochester; and Luisa Gauci, a second baseman who has signed a letter of intent to play for Green River Community College in Auburn, Wash. Each of them is the only woman on their respective college teams—as they often were on teams at every level. They’ve followed similar paths through the baseball ranks, and have grown accustomed to standing out and being scrutinized.