Building block or trading block? For now, Red Sox taking the long view with Marcelo Mayer.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A rumor flickered in baseball circles Monday, briefly lighting up the phones of a number of executives. Craig Breslow was among them.

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“I had somebody reach out to me and say, ‘Is it accurate to say you traded Marcelo [Mayer] to the Diamondbacks?’ ” recounted the Red Sox chief baseball officer. “There’s some things that you see, and you’re like, ‘OK, that is not accurate, but I at least understand where it came from.’ And then there are things that are just blatantly false and don’t deserve a ton of attention, and this falls into that category.”

The Sox had not traded Mayer to Arizona. Though the Sox and D-backs had discussed the possibility of including Mayer in a package for star second baseman Ketel Marte in the offseason — the Diamondbacks wanted Mayer in such a deal; the Sox refused to include him — multiple industry sources suggested there weren’t active talks involving a deal of Mayer to the desert.

In fact, Mayer was in the lineup against the Rays on Monday. He hadn’t heard about the rumors of a potential deal, but also wasn’t terribly concerned about them.

“I’m here to play baseball, not to read Twitter,” said Mayer.

But while Mayer remains with the Red Sox, his performance for them merits scrutiny. After going 1 for 2 with a solo home run in the Red Sox’ 3-1 loss to the Rays on Monday, the 23-year-old has a .222/.281/.311 line. His .592 OPS is among the lowest of any player in the big leagues.

More concerning, Mayer’s production has diminished as the season has progressed. Since May 7, he is hitting .176/.222/.257. He’s been making contact, with just a 16 percent strikeout rate during the slump, but simply hasn’t hit the ball with any kind of authority, producing only two extra-base hits over the 26-game span.

“You’re not happy hitting whatever it is that I’m hitting for the last month, obviously,” said Mayer. “Just got to do my best to get out of it, really. That’s it. I’m in the big leagues, and I need to find a way to produce. . . . There’s no way to sugarcoat it. I’ve just got to let my game speak for itself and start to perform.”

On Monday, he did just that in resounding fashion, demolishing a left-on-left sweeper from Rays starter Ian Seymour and launching it 401 feet into the seats in right-center for a solo homer, his third of the season.

It was the sort of swing the Sox need to see with greater frequency — and believe Mayer can produce learn to produce by staying in the big leagues. Whereas the team sent Brayan Bello to Triple-A last week, believing he needed a change of environment to navigate his struggles, they don’t appear to be at a similar point with Mayer.

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“The conversation right now is around making sure we’re doing everything we can to get the best performance out of him,” said Breslow. “He’s a really smart baseball player, understands exactly what makes him successful. He can kind of self-diagnose the work that needs to be done. There’s a lot of optimism that he’s gonna get on track, and he’s gonna be productive for us.”

Some of the specifics that give the Sox optimism about Mayer: He’s showing excellent bat speed, he’s making contact, he’s narrowed holes in his swing (making more and better contact against off-speed pitches at the bottom of the zone), his contact point is shifting forward to allow him to get the ball off the ground, and he’s doing the behind-the-scenes work that the team believes will yield improved in-game results.

Most recently, he began implementing a small pre-swing toe tap while hitting in the cage prior to Saturday’s rainout in New York. His at-bats both on Sunday against the Yankees and Monday against the Rays suggested to the potential payoff.

“[I’d] just been feeling really disconnected with my legs,” said Mayer. “It’s been feeling really good ever since [introducing the toe tap].”

The Sox believe they’re seeing progress from a young player in the big leagues, rather than someone lost in failure.

“He’s putting himself in a good position to do damage, and now it’s just a matter of squaring those balls up perfectly,” said Sox interim hitting coach John Soteropulos. “He’s just barely missing the sweet spot. But he’s putting himself in a position to do that damage, and the sweet spot contact is coming.”

On Monday, the sweet spot contact arrived against Seymour, as Mayer snapped a streak of 18 straight games without an extra-base hit, the sort of swing to reinforce the Sox’s belief not only in Mayer’s potential but also in his ability to move towards it. Monday’s rumors notwithstanding, they still see him as a building block rather than someone whose greatest value will come on the trading block.

“A lot more young players struggle than are successful and make that transition [to the big leagues] seamlessly,” said Breslow. “What we need to do is make sure that we have the staff to support him, and we create an environment around him and all of our other young players that enable them to be themselves, to be comfortable, to be confident, and ultimately to go out and perform on the field.”

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