Red Sox's Roman Anthony Injury Is So Rare Even Doctors Have Been Surprised

The Boston Red Sox have been missing Roman Anthony for quite some time at this point.

Boston has a day off on Monday, which certainly is much-needed. The Red Sox are 11 games under .500 right now after taking two of three games against the Texas Rangers at home at Fenway Park over the weekend. Boston is 29-40 on the season and it's been a difficult year. When you lose a player of Anthony's caliber as well as someone like Garrett Crochet, among many others, it's going to hurt a club. The Red Sox arguably should be better than they have been, but still, they are behind the eight ball right now.

Anthony has the most potential of any offensive player on the Red Sox's roster. Boston added Willson Contreras this past offseason, which was a great move, but part of the reason why the Red Sox didn't add another piece was because of the massive expectations around Anthony. There were a lot of people predicting that Anthony could be in the mix for the American League Most Valuable Player Award in 2026. If Anthony was healthy and playing at an MVP level, that certainly would remove a lot of the issues with the club.

Anthony hasn't played in a game since May 4. After a lot of conflicting information, Anthony shared that he specifically is dealing with a partially torn ring finger CMC ligament. He has started swinging and has been shut down multiple times throughout this process. At this point, there is no timetable for return.

The Red Sox Outfielder Is Still Up In The Air

May 1, 2026; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Boston Red Sox left fielder Roman Anthony (19) bats against the Houston Astros during the first inning at Fenway Park. Mandatory Credit: Brian Fluharty-Imagn Images | Brian Fluharty-Imagn Images

On Monday, Alex Speier of The Boston Globe shared a fascinating story breaking down the injury with the help of Dr. Mark Cohen of Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush University. One thing that stood out was the fact that Dr. Cohen told Speier he hadn't seen an injury like this in 32 years.

"I’ve been doing this 32 years. I actually have never heard of a ring finger-isolated CMC ligament tear,” said Cohen. “The joints in which the ligaments get injured are usually not the CMC level … They’re at the knuckle or joints within the fingers. If you look up ring finger ligament sprain, you’ll find nothing — zero — because it’s not a common injury.”

That certainly helps to make sense of why this process has been so confusing. It's unlucky, to say the least.

It doesn't necessarily justify some of the messaging that has come out from the team on the injury. It makes sense why a lot of it has been confusing. But when Anthony first went down, he visited a specialist and the club immediately made it clear that the hope was that he wouldn't need an Injured List stint. If they knew about the CMC tear at that time, then it would be a bit odd to then also talk about the injury in hopeful terms.

Regardless, that's in the past now. The injury is known and now the Red Sox wait.

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