What Red Sox’ Roman Anthony said before first rehab game; ‘Felt weird to finally be here’

PORTLAND, Maine — Red Sox left fielder Roman Anthony will play in a baseball game Tuesday for the first time in three-and-a-half months.

Anthony will serve as the designated hitter and bat second as he begins a rehab assignment with Double-A Portland. First pitch at Hadlock Field against Reading is scheduled for 6:05 p.m.

“I was driving here today, and it just felt weird to finally be here,” Anthony said. “A long process for me and took a lot longer than I could have expected when I first did it. But I’m happy that it’s all behind me and I can just play baseball.”

The 22-year-old tore a ligament under his right ring finger while swinging during an at-bat in Detroit on May 4.

He initially expected to be on the injured list for the minimum 10 days.

“Looking at it from a non-medical standpoint, when I hear finger that doesn’t seem too intense to me,” Anthony said. “Obviously I’ve learned that that’s not the case.”

Anthony initially resumed hitting within weeks after suffering the injury but his progression was halted on May 28, when he felt discomfort in his injured hand while hitting off a tee.

Anthony finally restarted his hitting progression on July 29 after being shut down for approximately nine weeks.

“There were a few different opinions I got that told me it would be almost as long as it took,” Anthony said. “So knowing that in the back of my head, I just tried to do everything I could to minimize that and to get out there as fast as I could.”

Anthony described “general hand and wrist pain” that kept him from swinging.

“Finishing the swing with an end-heavy bat, that was what gave me the most problems,” he said. “And when you’re swinging in pain, it just doesn’t work.

“When I started to feel pain-free ... it was more so like, ‘Let’s see how we’re recovering. Let’s see what the quickest ramp up could look like,’” he added. “And I think when I started feeling pain-free, we were able to take that.”

Anthony said finally swinging without pain “didn’t feel real for a second.” He has experienced no issues since he restarted swinging.

“I was recovering great,” he said. “I was coming in feeling great after swinging. And even hitting Trajekt and high intensity machines, I was feeling good. So I was ready to get back up here.”

Anthony flew in Monday after he spent more than a month rehabbing at the Red Sox’ JetBlue Park complex in Fort Myers.

“It made the most sense to go down there and finish everything down there and go see another specialist in Atlanta,” Anthony said. “So for me, it sucks when you have to leave the group of guys and you’re not there every day and didn’t get to see what happened when I was gone. But just pumped that I was able to watch the boys and kind of stay in contact with them while they were doing what they did. But it’s good to be back up north. I landed yesterday, and this feels like home. So being back here, it feels amazing.”

During the rehab process, Anthony focused on taking care of everything from his hand all the way up to his shoulder.

He never questioned whether he would return at some point this season. He kept telling himself every day he would help the team again this year.

“Stayed true to that the entire way,” he said. “Obviously didn’t go super smooth at all times. But again, I’m sitting there just telling myself in my head, like, ‘Man, this is just a finger injury. Why is this taking so long? There’s no way this is gonna make me miss the entire year.”

He doesn’t have a set number of at-bats or games in mind that he thinks he’ll need before being ready to return from the IL.

“I think it should be interesting to see,” Anthony said. “I’m hopeful to get back up there as fast as I can. So as long as everything goes well and it’s recovering well, I think I’m going to do everything I can to get back as fast as I can. Obviously, there’s some volume stuff and things that I have to kind of check off before I’m able to get back up there.”

Anthony appeared in 30 games this season before the injury, batting .229 with a .354 on-base percentage, .321 slugging percentage and .675 OPS in 130 plate appearances. He had just one home run, five doubles, one triple and five RBIs.

“Being out here and being on the field is what gives me more peace than anything,” Anthony said. “So to get out of hot Fort Myers and be able to come back here and play a baseball game today, it’s a blessing.”

Interim manager Chad Tracy said back in Boston that Anthony “is already scheduled for a hybrid day Wednesday ”where it’s like he’ll possibly play, possibly not.”

We’re just gonna see how he feels because he’s going to have a full day of BP on the field and his first game," Tracy said. “We’ll just see how he feels. There’s still times where if he gets a little soreness, is it better to just take that day off and resume the next day? It could go either way.”

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