The 22-year-old has been out of the Red Sox lineup since May 4 with no timetable for a return.
BOSTON -- It has been 43 days since former No. 1 overall prospect Roman Anthony has been in the lineup for the Boston Red Sox after suffering a torn ligament in his right ring finger during the Red Sox' May 4 win in Detroit. With the season slowly slipping away, there is no reason for Boston to rush their face of the franchise back.
Anthony had begun a swing progression in late May before experiencing pain in the injured hand after hitting off a tee for the first time on May 28, which caused the team to shut him down once again. The 22-year-old has not swung since the setback.
Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy told reporters ahead of Tuesday night's series opener against the Toronto Blue Jays that Anthony underwent a six-week MRI to check on the torn ligament. “Everything looked good, healing properly," Tracy told MassLive.com's Christopher Smith. "That does not mean that because the picture said that, it’s like he’s hitting today. Just means that — did a follow-up at the six-week mark just to see if things are looking good. It’s still gonna be at his progress and how he feels, and the medical staff will determine each day if he’s going to swing and try and see where we’re at," he continued.
In the 33 games since the injury occurred, Boston has gone 14-19 while scoring the fourth-fewest runs in baseball. The Red Sox have fallen to 5.5 games back of the final wild card spot in the American League. Even if the 22-year-old phenom does return to the Boston lineup, it is unlikely that he will provide the spark to pull the Boston offense from the basement of the league. Anthony struggled in 30 games before the injury, hitting .229/.354/.321/.675.
According to Fangraphs, the Red Sox enter Tuesday's series opener against the Blue Jays with just a 16.4 percent chance of making the playoffs, a number that continues to shrink with each passing day. As Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow contemplates shifting his focus to becoming a deadline seller, it becomes less and less important for Anthony to rush back into the Red Sox lineup.
Breslow and the Red Sox organization as a whole invested heavily in Anthony, giving him a nine-year, $130.46 million extension last year, anointing him as the face of the franchise when they chose to let Alex Bregman walk in free agency.
While continuing to get major league at-bats is imperative for the development of Anthony, it is far more important for the future of the franchise that he let the ligament fully heal so that it doesn't affect him in the future rather than rush back for a team that's on the fast track to missing the playoffs for the fifth time since winning the 2018 World Series.
The Red Sox and Blue Jays kick off a three-game set at Fenway Park on Tuesday night. Payton Tolle (3-3, 2.70 ERA) gets the start for Boston opposite Dylan Cease (3-3, 2.91 ERA) for Toronto. First pitch set for 6:45 p.m. ET.
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