In a positive progress report, Roman Anthony notedly swinging a bat as bid to return to Red Sox continues
WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Roman Anthony is making progress — real, tangible, baseball-related progress.
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For the first time in two months, Anthony has started swinging a bat, Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy said Thursday, a positive turn in what has become a bizarre injury saga.
The outfielder’s work for now is limited to the initial stages of building back up with a bat: hitting baseballs off a tee and others softly flipped to him. After initially endeavoring to do so Wednesday, Anthony did it again Thursday — about 30 swings each time, Tracy said.
It represents a routine, but in this case meaningful step toward Anthony’s hoped-for return from a sprained right hand/wrist before the end of the season.
“There’s no clear next steps yet. He just started doing it,” Tracy said before the series finale with the Athletics. “It’s probably going to remain that way for a little while and see how he’s feeling, and then if that continues to go well, then we’ll start talking about building out a progression into more stuff. But he at least has a bat in his hand. He’s swinging.”
Anthony, 22, has been out for just about three months because of a partially torn ligament in his right ring finger, a highly unusual injury for a baseball player, sustained on a seemingly random swing on May 4. His first attempt to resume swinging, in late May, triggered significant pain, so the Sox shut him down — for just a few more days, they said initially.
In early July, the Red Sox relocated Anthony from Boston to the team’s spring training facility in Fort Myers, Fla., to continue his rehab.
Tracy had noted recently that Anthony would not start swinging until he is pain-free.
Does this mean he is pain-free?
“I just know the answer I keep getting [to,] ‘How’s it feel?’ [is,] ‘Feeling good,’ ” Tracy said. “It’s the first step that had to drop … and it being a real bat and a ball off a tee and some short flips is good. But it’s the first step. There’s still a lot of them to go, and we’ll see. Just basically keep seeing how he feels over the coming days with doing that, and leave it at that.”
Mead not ruled out for ’26
Curtis Mead was diagnosed with a nondisplaced fracture in his left wrist, Tracy said, leaving open the possibility that he plays again in 2026.
Mead won’t have surgery, is in a cast, and will be reimaged in four weeks, Tracy added. The Red Sox will get a better sense then of when the infielder might return.
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“I wouldn’t say there’s any reason to rule him out based on those findings, but we’ll know a lot more in four weeks once they reimage and see how it’s healed,” Tracy said.
The Sox acquired Mead from the Nationals (for Connelly Early) on Saturday. On Monday, in his first game with the team, he was injured on a hit by pitch to the wrist.
Pitching plans in place
Against the two-time defending World Series champion Dodgers, the Red Sox will keep their rotation in order in Los Angeles, with a trio of southpaws: Ranger Suarez on Friday, Payton Tolle on Saturday, and Jake Bennett on Sunday.
On paper, that works out for the Sox, since Dodgers hitters are slightly worse against lefthanders (.245/.325/.411) than righties (.268/.348/.442).
The Dodgers haven’t announced a pitcher for the series opener. But they will go with Yoshinobu Yamamoto (2.72 ERA) on Saturday and fellow righthander Emmet Sheehan (4.95) on Sunday.
College connections
Athletics slugger Nick Kurtz has a Red Sox link: He counts Double-A Portland’s Jack Winnay, a Newton native, as “one of my closest friends,” he said. They were teammates at Wake Forest in 2023-24.
“He’s awesome,” Kurtz said this week at Sutter Health Park. “I checked in on him during the All-Star break just to see how he’s doing. I saw he’s killing it, so doesn’t surprise me at all. Great player, great guy.”
Since a late June promotion to Portland, Winnay, a 23-year-old corner infielder, has transitioned well, hitting .302/.380/.490 through 27 games — an impressive mark at a high level in his first full season in the minors.
“My whole junior year [before Kurtz was drafted No. 4 in 2024], he hit behind me in the lineup. He’s able to kind of do it all, hit for power, use the whole field. I think he’s just an all-around player,” Kurtz said. “We have similar thoughts I think in the way that we attack a pitcher and the way that we think.
“He’s a little bit different. He pulls the ball in the air a lot better than I do, so he can look in and really hit the inside pitch really well and homer on it. I’m a little different in the way where I’m trying to drive everything to left-center field. I’m a little different in the way where I’m trying to drive everything to left-center field.”
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