Why aren’t Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer in the majors yet?

It’s a straightforward question that fans have been asking all year but has become more pressing with each passing day. The two top Red Sox prospects, who rank No. 1 and 8 on Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects list respectively, have been dominating at Triple-A Worcester all season. Meanwhile, the big league team entered Wednesday 25-25 and with multiple holes in the lineup.

The simplest explanation is the Red Sox don’t have an obvious place for them on the big league roster, but manager Alex Cora is already on record saying it wouldn’t necessarily take an injury for the two to earn a spot. Prior to the second game of the season in Texas, Cora told reporters that “they’re going to push us to make decisions.”

With Anthony batting .322 with a .970 OPS and some of the best underlying metrics in the minor leagues, what else does he need to do? Cora was posed the question point blank on Wednesday.

“That’s a great question, I understand where you’re coming from, but we are where we’re at,” Cora told MassLive’s Christopher Smith. “Right now we’ve got some guys here that are playing great baseball, right? And we understand that at one point, I do believe they’re going to be part of this, but as of right now we haven’t made that decision.”

Though Anthony has performed better overall through the first seven weeks of the season, Mayer arguably has the cleaner path to the majors. Trevor Story, Boston’s starting shortstop, has been mired in an abysmal slump and is currently batting .232 with a .616 OPS on the season. He’s especially struggled recently, batting .135 with only one extra-base hit over the past month, and even his normally reliable defensive numbers have dipped.

Things have gotten to a point where Story has begun batting seventh in the lineup, below recent Triple-A call-up Nick Sogard.

“Just felt like that was the best lineup for us,” Cora said of Story batting seventh.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox have gotten little to no production at first base since Triston Casas and Romy Gonzalez both went down due to injury, and after a hot start to the season Kristian Campbell’s production has also fallen off a cliff. Though Mayer and Anthony are not considered candidates to play first, Campbell has recently begun doing pregame work at the position, suggesting the possibility that Mayer could take over as the everyday second baseman while Campbell plays first.

Mayer, who is batting .262 while ranking second in all of minor league baseball with 41 RBI, started at second in Worcester for the fourth time in five games on Wednesday after previously playing just five games there over the first month and a half.

Anthony would be tougher to fit into the big league puzzle. The simplest approach would be to either bench or demote Ceddanne Rafaela — who usually bats ninth — but he has also been one of the best defensive outfielders in baseball and has made strides at the plate since his rookie year. Jarren Duran got off to a slow start but has really turned it on over the past week, and Wilyer Abreu has been one of the best all-around players in MLB.

For now the Red Sox are content to go with who they have, but Anthony and Mayer have both done everything in their power to push themselves into the conversation. If things keep going the way they are, they could start making it tough on the Red Sox to justify keeping them in Triple-A.