Roman Anthony won't be in the lineup for the Boston Red Sox as they try to keep their season alive in Game 2 of their Wild Card series against the New York Yankees on Tuesday night. According to MassLive's Chris Cotillo, further testing on Anthony's troublesome hand revealed "multiple new strains ... plus a re-aggravation of the old injury" that had kept him out for most of the regular season. And somehow, that's not even the worst part.
The worst part came a few hours later, when Anthony returned to the Bronx to speak with members of the media. Anthony told the Boston Herald's Gabrielle Starr and others that he was "never really 100 percent" despite coming off the IL in September, committed to simply pushing the through the pain in an effort to help his team down the stretch. That pain was apparently "tolerable" at first, but became less so in Game 1, when he became unable to swing a bat and had to be lifted in the top of the sixth inning.
So, to recap: The Red Sox allowed their most important young player to return to the field despite never really recovering from the injury that sidelined him in the first place, up to and including playing him in a meaningless regular-season finale at Tropicana Field on Sunday. Oh, and they did all this without ever checking in to see whether Anthony was making the issue worse — Anthony told Starr that he last had imaging done on his hand in late July.
Needless to stay, Craig Breslow and Co. have some explaining to do.
Red Sox need to answer for handling of Roman Anthony's injury
We're not here to clutch pearls about a player — let alone one as important to his team as Anthony — pushing to play through injury in the playoffs. And if the Red Sox were confident that this were simply a matter of pain tolerance, that there was no risk of Anthony making things worse and putting part of his 2027 season in jeopardy as well, then by all means let him try.
But clearly that wasn't the case. This wasn't simply a matter of the pain becoming too much; Anthony now has whole new muscle strains to deal with, and who knows what that might mean for his offseason? How on Earth did Boston allow that to go unnoticed? There was plenty of chatter among Red Sox fans that Anthony wasn't right; he was seen shaking his hand after a check swing in Sunday's season finale. But apparently at no point did anyone in the organization think to make sure that Anthony wasn't trying to just grin and bear something that had become untenable.
Of course Anthony isn't going to be the most forthcoming about how he's feeling. He's a professional athlete, for goodness' sake, and it's October. (Plus, he also plays for a fan base that already questioned the toughness of one injury-prone former top prospect this year.) There's no way you can be around him every day and not pick up on something that should set off some sort of alarm bell.
Instead, the Red Sox just stuck their heads in the sand, and now they're not only without one of their best hitters for a must-win game, but said best player might well have his ramp-up for 2027 affected as well. For an organization that doesn't exactly have the best track record when it comes to communication with players, this is not the best look.
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