August 30, 2026<\/a><\/p>\nBoston enters Sunday three games behind New York for the top American League Wild Card spot. The teams are tied 6-6 in the season series, meaning the winner of Sunday\u2019s finale will own the head-to-head tiebreaker should they finish the regular season with identical records.<\/p>\n
Anthony\u2019s return to the Red Sox lineup has been months in the making.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old hasn\u2019t played for Boston since May 4, when he tore a ligament under his right ring finger on a swing against the Tigers. What initially appeared as though it might be a relatively short absence turned into a painstaking recovery that prevented Anthony from swinging a bat throughout June and July.<\/p>\n
He finally began swinging off a tee earlier this month before beginning his rehab assignment Aug. 18.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I\u2019m ready,\u201d Anthony told reporters at Polar Park on Saturday. \u201cI\u2019ve felt somewhat ready since the first game in Portland.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anthony certainly looked ready during his rehab assignment. He went 7-for-25 (.280) with two homers, two doubles and seven RBI in eight games between Double-A Portland and Worcester, posting a .367 on-base percentage, .600 slugging percentage and .967 OPS.<\/p>\n
After Saturday\u2019s game at Polar Park, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette\u2019s Tommy Cassell noted that Anthony\u2019s locker had been cleared and his belongings were being taken out of the clubhouse.<\/p>\n
Anthony initially told reporters he wasn\u2019t sure whether he was headed to New York, but made it clear he was anxious to get back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited to get back,\u201d Anthony said. \u201cI\u2019m excited to just get back to the normalcy of seeing the guys and being around the boys and for it to be a different environment, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the injury, Anthony was hitting .229\/.354\/.321 with one homer, five doubles, a triple and five RBI in 130 plate appearances. His underlying numbers offered more encouragement, including a 15.4% walk rate, 21.6% chase rate, 47.4% hard-hit rate and 92.3 mph average exit velocity.<\/p>\n
Tracy said Anthony is expected to return to the leadoff spot against right-handed pitching and could remain there against some lefties. He figures to receive at-bats in left field and at designated hitter.<\/p>\n
Story\u2019s return has followed a slightly different path.<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old hasn\u2019t played for Boston since May 14 and underwent surgery May 21 to repair a sports hernia. Unlike Anthony, Story struggled offensively during his rehab assignment, going 6-for-35 (.171) with one double, three RBI, one walk and 11 strikeouts over 10 games for Worcester.<\/p>\n
Story was hitting just .206 with three homers and seven doubles over 176 plate appearances before surgery, but the Red Sox are hoping a healthy version of the veteran can provide more production down the stretch.<\/p>\n
His return should also restore some stability at shortstop, where Story is expected to resume his role as the starter.<\/p>\n
Getting two regulars back creates another problem, albeit one the Red Sox won\u2019t mind having this time of year.<\/p>\n
Boston will need to clear two spots on the active roster, with Seigler and Gasper optioned to Worcester, the Sox’ roster is set and both players will need to wait 10 days before being recalled unless a player is placed on the injured list.<\/p>\n
Gasper had made Craig Breslow’s\u00a0decision on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Sox reporters can finally stop posting on social media about whether Roman Anthony is in the WooSox…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,5156,591,16088,85,127900,398894,356365],"class_list":["post-874276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-mlb","tag-red-sox","tag-sports","tag-sticky","tag-sunday-notebooks","tag-top-red-sox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}