It was only a matter of time before Roman Anthony officially joined the Boston Red Sox.
His Major League Baseball debut, though, didn’t quite go the way that they had hoped.
The Red Sox called up Anthony, who is MLB Pipeline’s top prospect in the sport, on Monday afternoon so he could open their series with the Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway Park. Anthony played in right field and batted fifth in the lineup.
He made a pretty brutal error in the fifth inning. Anthony let a single get completely past his glove, which gave up a run and put the Rays up 3-0 at the time.
Anthony redeemed himself a bit in the ninth inning. He stepped up to the plate with two men on and one out with a chance to pull off a game-winner. Instead, he grounded out but got credit for an RBI.
While it could have been more, Anthony’s RBI was enough to force extra innings. Kristian Campbell hit an RBI single right after him to tie up the game and send it to the 10th. But the Rays held on and put up a pair of runs in the 11th after Junior Caminero was walked and Jake Mangum hit an RBI single to seal the 10-8 win. That pushed the Rays to 36-30 on the year and gave them their sixth win in seven games.
Why did the Red Sox call up Roman Anthony at this point in season?
The decision to bring Anthony up now came together quickly, Red Sox manager Alex Cora said before the game, especially after the team lost Wilyer Abreu to the 10-day injured list.
“We’re trying to win ball games, and the kid has done an amazing job … just getting ready for this moment,” Cora said, via MLB.com. “Obviously not the way you want, right? Because Wilyer is great player, great defender, good at-bat, but [Anthony will] be here. We’re excited. It’s a big day for the organization.”
The 21-year-old outfielder entered the season as one of the best prospects in the sport, but he remained in the minors for the first few months of the season. He more than proved his worth Friday, though, when he hit a grand slam that traveled nearly 500 feet with the Red Sox’s Triple-A affiliate. The 497-foot blast in the eighth inning of the Worcester Red Sox’s matchup against the Rochester Red Wings was the longest home run hit in the minors and Major League Baseball this season, and it would have been the fifth-longest home run in MLB since 2015.
Several of the sport’s best players — including Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Fernando Tatis Jr. and others — have never hit a ball that far. It was also less than 10 feet off the Statcast record.
Anthony held a .288 batting average and had 10 home runs with 29 RBIs in 58 games with Worcester this season. He is the third big-time prospect the Red Sox have called up this season, following Campbell and Marcelo Mayer.
“We’ll use him the right way and we’ll help him with the adjustments that come of being a big leaguer,” Cora said. “But I think as far as being a person, just being around him in spring training and all that, he’s a mature kid, he understands his craft, wants to get better. There’s a few things that we still believe he needs to improve, but we’ll help him here. I think he’s going to be OK.”
The Red Sox now sit at 32-36 on the season after Monday’s loss, which has them fourth in the AL East standings. While they’ve won three of their past five games, including two against the New York Yankees, the Red Sox have a ways to go after their slow start to the 2025 campaign. Time will tell if Anthony can provide a big enough boost to get them to their first postseason appearance since 2021.
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