Before we begin looking ahead to 2027, OTM is looking back at 2026, highlighting some of the biggest, strangest, and most memorable moments of a memorable season.
Roman Anthony and Trevor Story each landed on the IL in May and each returned to the Red Sox on the same day: August 30. They were activated prior to the series finale against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. Anthony, who missed nearly four months with a ligament tear at the base of the ring finger on his right hand, batted leadoff as the DH.
Story had been sidelined with a hernia that required surgery. He started at shortstop and batted eighth.
With the severity of their respective injuries, the length of their absences, and the way the club had performed without them, there was speculation that perhaps the Sox shouldn’t disturb the chemistry that had been working so well all summer. For Story in particular, expectations weren’t exactly high. He had not performed well in his rehab assignment in Worcester and had made it known publicly that he was keen to rush back to the big league club. It didn’t sound like a recipe for success.
And yet, on August 30 in the Bronx, Anthony and Story turned out to be the only bright spots in a 16-1 drubbing by the Yankees. In their reintroduction to the big-league club, Anthony went 2-for-4, and Story, who scored the lone run, went 2-for-3.
I was as surprised as anyone by their performances, but it’s their first game back at Fenway Park the next day, August 31, that really interests me.
Most of all, it’s Roman Anthony’s absolutely stunning slide into home plate, which I’ve written was my favorite moment of the entire season.
They were playing the Seattle Mariners, my “home team away from home.” The Mariners, despite their terrible season overall, looked as though they might possibly end a five-game losing streak. Randy Arozarena had a great game, with four hits, including a huge home run. Cal Raleigh homered too. Dominic Canzone got a double and the famous basepath hug from Payton Tolle. Lots of offense, and the lead went back and forth. Then, in the ninth inning, Anthony tripled. He scored on a sacrifice fly from Ceddanne Rafaela and truly, his slide into home was a thing of beauty.
I don’t know how many times I’ve watched this slide. Its precision and timing are so spot-on that it could be ballet. It’s as tight as a haiku: if you add or subtract anything, it wouldn’t work. It’s almost hypnotic to me.
That’s the micro-view. My personal opinion.
The macro view is that this moment tied the game. In fact, it set the table for the Sox to win the next inning, on a walk-off single by none other than Trevor Story. If you zoom out just a bit further, the even bigger macro is that Anthony’s slide—by setting up the eventual victory delivered by Story—put an exclamation point on the triumphant return of both of our prodigal players.
And by zooming out just a bit more, the macro view is that this slide wasn’t only a thing of beauty; it was savvy as hell. That precisely choreographed move showcased Anthony using every single tool at his disposal to outsmart Cal Raleigh. This is the kind of display that encapsulates Anthony’s talents and invites us to pin all our hopes for the team on him.
And on August 31, we felt that. This slide proved that Anthony was okay, and if Anthony was okay, then the Sox would be rock-solid the rest of the way. This slide announced that both Anthony and Story were Back, with a capital B. And if that was true, well, we were better than rock-solid; we were golden.
In those first two games back, on August 30–31, Anthony and Story each went 4-for-8. Anthony had the big slide of course, as well three extra-base hits; he also scored twice and walked. Story scored a run of his own and logged three RBIs.
The Beginning of the End
As a kid, I read a book in which one character used the word “fey” to describe another. It stuck with me because I had to look it up but then, in a later chapter, the speaker explains the word to someone else: “Fey? Well, it’s a Scotch word, really. It means the kind of exalted happiness that comes before disaster. You know—it’s too good to be true.”
If that doesn’t describe this situation, I don’t know what does. And disaster was coming for us after Roman Anthony’s glorious slide on August 31. Bob provides a deep dive into how the Sox began to unravel the very next day.
For Anthony specifically, he immediately fell into a 1-for-17 slump. Against Baltimore at the beginning of September, he went hitless in three consecutive games. He managed to homer twice more on the season, and had one last great game—against the Cubs, when he went 3-for-3. But his September was otherwise grim.
It was so grim that during Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Series, he checked his swing and had to exit the game (and the rest of the season, though it was destined to be short) due to pain. Imaging revealed that not only had he re-aggravated the ligament tear but had developed new muscle strains due to compensating for the original injury. As we later learned, he had never felt 100% and had been playing through pain and “zingers” in his hand.
After August 31, Story fared a bit better than Anthony, especially in that he remained healthy. He put together an 11-game hitting streak. He went 3-for-5 against the Orioles on September 5, had three RBIs on September 17 against the Rangers, and homered on September 20. But the September slump ultimately came for him too. He had a number of games without a hit toward the end of the month and, like the rest of the team, was cold in the Wild Card Series, going 1-for-6.
Ice cold.
The Red Sox are now about as far from the “exalted happiness” of August 31 as I can imagine. There are existential rumblings about whether Anthony will ever be able to get back on track with his career, if he’ll ever get free of the injury bug. Time will tell if that’s catastrophizing or not, but it’s true that Anthony has yet to fully embody his potential. The 2026 season was supposed to be that time for him; now we hope for 2027. (And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that we hope for a 2027 season, period.)
As for Story, everyone is wondering all over again whether he’s over (bad contract, injuries, age, skills in decline, you name it). On August 31, it looked like he was at last coming into his own. Nope.
A dream deferred again—for Anthony and Story as individual players, and for the Red Sox as a team. On August 31, we thought—we knew—that we had it all. We just didn’t know what would come next.
