The Boston Red Sox’s messaging around key injuries has been a bit off so far this season, to say the least. On Thursday, Roman Anthony showed this in a big way.
Anthony hasn’t played in a game since May 4. Initially, there was hope — at least publicly — that he would only need a few days off and potentially even avoid an Injured List stint. That obviously hasn’t been the case. There have been updates left and right throughout the process, including the most glaring being Red Sox president and chief executive officer Sam Kennedy joining the “The Greg Hill Show” on WEEI last week and shutting down the rumors out there insinuating that Anthony has a torn ligament in his hand. Kennedy said that Anthony had a sprain and that a second opinion even confirmed there wasn’t a tear.
But, on Thursday, the young outfielder joined WEEI and said otherwise. Anthony shared that he has had a partially torn ring finger ligament, and specifically said it is his ring finger CMC.
The Red Sox Outfielder Has Been Out For A While
“I’ll put on my doctor suit right now and you know, I don’t know if it has been made clear, but it’s a partially torn ring finger ligament,” Anthony said. “My ring finger CMC to be exact for everyone out there who knows what a ring finger CMC is because I definitely knew what that was before this happened, right? It’s just one of those things, like you said Mother Nature kind of just has to do its thing. It’s just one of those things, almost similar to an oblique where you just have to let it do its thing.”
Roman Anthony confirmed he does have a partial tear in his ring finger during the Two-Minute Grill with @bradfo during the Red Sox Pregame Show.
Photo by Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe via Getty Images pic.twitter.com/hOI1rEtRoM
— WEEI Red Sox Network (@SoxBooth) May 28, 2026
All of the updates arguably put Anthony in a bad spot. The Red Sox are struggling and there clearly has been buzz out there hoping that he could be back in the mix as fast as possible. If the club had simply said from the beginning that there was a tear instead of a sprain, it would’ve completely shifted the perception of the injury across the fanbase.
This has been a surprising trend with Boston this season. You’re never going to get the full picture from a club about injuries. But multiple times the club has undersold what ended up happening — whether intentional or not. The initial public hope was that Anthony wouldn’t land on the IL, but he has had a tear and now is approaching one month out of action. Garrett Crochet is in a similar boat and hasn’t pitched since April 25, despite initial chatter that he could be back in the minimum amount of time after landing on the IL. On Thursday, the Red Sox placed Garrett Whitlock on the IL after he was called day-to-day on Wednesday.
The injury messaging has been odd, to say the least.
