NEW YORK - The Red Sox will have to figure out how to continue their season without Roman Anthony.
Chad Tracy announced prior to Wednesday's Game 2 Wild Card game against the Yankees that Anthony has been sent back to Boston after experiencing pain in the same right hand that sidelined him for the majority of the 2026 regular season. It was determined that Anthony aggravated areas in the hand that weren't solely specific to the previous injury.
With Anthony being taken off the Wild Card roster, he won't be available for the American League Division Series if the Red Sox advance. Taking his place on the roster is Curtis Mead, who will be making his first appearance with the Red Sox since fracturing his left wrist in his first game as a member of the Sox, July 27.
Tracy said he wasn't concerned about Anthony's hand heading into Game 1, despite sporadic discomfort over the past few weeks. It wasn't until the training staff made the manager aware that Anthony wouldn't be able to swing just before the sixth that Tracy realized things had taken a turn for the worse.
"He has had check swings throughout this process since coming back off of it that irritated it," Tracy said. "It's happened numerous times. Those happen typically, like by the next day, it's feeling fine. So, that's happened since September started, and he was coming back from all the stuff, and he was doing it. So there are swings that do that to it, you know. But it doesn't necessarily mean we weren't overly concerned about anything like that."
Anthony was driven back to Boston after Tuesday night's game to secure an MRI early Wednesday morning.
