None of you prayed hard enough, did you?
In a radio interview on WEEI this afternoon, Sox manager Alex Cora revealed that Roman Anthony — the August Rookie of the month and the man who, in my opinion, is already clearly the best offensive performer on the team — will miss the next four-to-six weeks recovering from the oblique strain he suffered in las night’s pyrrhic victory over the Guardians. So in the absolute best case scenario, Anthony may return just in time for the Wild Card series. Though,
with the minor leagues shutting down in about two and a half weeks, he will have to return without any rehab, and oblique injuries can really mess with a hitter’s swing. Of course, the Red Sox still need to make the postseason before we worry about that.
With only 22 games remaining in the regular season and a six-game lead over the Wild Card-chasing Rangers (themselves reeling from the injury loss of their ace, Nathan Eovaldi), the Sox almost certainly have a big enough cushion to survive the loss of Anthony. If you believe in the math behind WAR, then we’re looking at only additional 1-2 losses — at the absolute most — as a result of Anthony’s absence. Falling out of the postseason at this point would represent a monumental collapse.
Of course Anthony is hardly the only issue on the roster right now. Wilyer Abreu doesn’t have a timeline to return from his right calf strain and it’s unclear what the back half of the starting rotation looks like, with Payton Tolle’s workload being managed and Dustin May Dustin Maying all over the place every five days. The Sox could be in danger of a September slide that, even if it doesn’t ultimately cost them a postseason spot, could very well cost them any home games in the Wild Card series. And while home field advantage doesn’t tend to have as big of an impact in baseball as it does in other sports, the 2025 Red Sox appear to be an outlier in that regard: they’ve gone just 34-35 on the road compared to 44-27 at Fenway.
In short: this sucks!
