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Jorge Castillo
NEW YORK — The first time the Boston Red Sox visited Yankee Stadium this season, Roman Anthony was in Worcester, Massachusetts, pummeling Triple-A pitching less than a month after his 21st birthday. On June 7, the night the Red Sox beat the Yankees 10-7, Anthony blasted a 497-foot grand slam against the Rochester Red Wings, his 10th home run of the season.
Two days later, Anthony was a major leaguer. And this week, on the Red Sox’s next trip to the Bronx, the lefty slugger loudly introduced himself to baseball’s most storied rivalry with a two-run moon shot to the second deck at Yankee Stadium with an appropriate bat flip in Boston’s series-opening 6-3 win.
The ability to meet the moment surprised none of his teammates. Ask any member of the Red Sox about Anthony and three themes emerge: His immense talent, his quiet confidence and an old-soul maturity uncommon for someone who couldn’t legally drink until May 13.
“He is probably the most mature 21-year-old, baseball-wise, I have ever been around in my life,” Red Sox third baseman Alex Bregman said. “The moment is never too big for him.”
That unusual combination prompted the Red Sox to give him an eight-year contract extension earlier this month, worth $130 million guaranteed plus escalators that could increase the total value to $230 million. The obvious was solidified with that agreement: Anthony has the potential to be the Red Sox’s next homegrown superstar, and the best of a promising group that includes fellow top prospects Marcelo Mayer and Kristian Campbell. The organization is betting on him to become the long-term cornerstone that Rafael Devers never did, despite his own 10-year, $313.5 million contract.
Anthony entered Friday batting .286 and an .852 OPS in 59 games primarily split between right and left field. He has solidified himself over the last month as the team’s leadoff hitter with an .405 on-base percentage, surpassing the organization’s high internal expectations. Under the hood, his hard-hit rate, average exit velocity and chase rate loudly suggest it is far from a fluky start.
“I think one way to do it would be to look at our record since he’s been here,” president of baseball operations Craig Breslow said when recently asked to assess Anthony’s performance.
The Red Sox are 37-24 since his debut, a turnaround that has also been fueled by markedly improved starting pitching and Bregman’s return from the injured list, even as the organization shocked the baseball world by trading Devers to the San Francisco Giants. The buzz is back at Fenway Park, where the Red Sox are 24-8 since June 10. Fan expectations are high after three consecutive Octobers without baseball.
“What’s crazy is it doesn’t feel like he’s 21,” Red Sox hitting coach Pete Fatse said. “It feels like he’s been in the big leagues for a long time.”
Anthony had been in the big leagues for six weeks when Bregman, a baseball rat working through his 10th season, brought him into the video room at Citizens Bank Park for a study session before the Red Sox completed a three-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies last month.
Anthony was holding his own, with a .755 OPS in his first 36 games as a big leaguer despite a rough first couple of weeks. But he told his coaches he still felt uncomfortable against left-handed pitchers at this level. The Red Sox noted a mechanical adjustment was potentially necessary, but they were ready to table that, perhaps even until the offseason to avoid overwhelming him. Instead, it was handled on a July Wednesday in Philadelphia — the day after he struck out four times against Phillies All-Star left-hander Cristopher Sanchez.
“In Philadelphia, he felt like he got exposed a little bit,” Breslow said.
Before the series finale, Bregman pulled up video of the majors’ best left-on-left hitters as determined by wOBA: Shohei Ohtani, Juan Soto, Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker. Bregman, along with Fatse and assistant hitting coach Dillon Lawson, dissected the stars’ stances for an hour with one question for Anthony: What do those guys have in common?
They broke down the side view of their swings. They analyzed the pitches they covered and the pitches they drove. The connection was obvious: They all stay behind the baseball, which allows them more time to make the correct swing decision and attack. For Anthony to consistently mimic them, he would have to adjust his hands in his batting stance, moving them back from out in front. The adjustment would minimize the process from load to launch and decrease the chances of his hands getting stuck behind him.
“The moves I was making are not practical against the arms we’re facing,” Anthony said. “There was a little too much going on.”
After an hour of watching video, Anthony went to the batting cage to test the tweak. Bregman recorded him on his phone. Anthony took swings for an hour. The change felt strange.
“It takes balls, bro,” Bregman said. “He’s got balls. He’s got the confidence, the ability to want to be great and since he wants to be great he’s willing to do whatever it takes to take it to the next level. He was playing well at the time and it didn’t matter.”
Prior to the adjustment, Anthony had posted just a .560 OPS in 48 plate appearances against lefties. Since then, his OPS, in 31 PAs against southpaws, is 1.176. Overall, he’s batting .329 with three of his five home runs this season, six doubles and a .992 OPS in that span.
On Friday night, Anthony, with his hands back, pounced on a first-pitch slider from Yankees reliever Yerry De los Santos — in this case, a right-hander — in the ninth inning, ballooning the Red Sox’s lead. The blast incited a mass exodus of Yankees fans. With three games remaining in the series, they had already seen enough of Anthony.