The Boston Red Sox called up outfielder Roman Anthony, who played in Monday’s 10–8, 11-inning loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. A few thoughts on the debut of the No. 1 prospect in baseball:
- He is so young—he just turned 21 last month—that three years ago this time he was graduating from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. The Red Sox drafted him in the second round with the 70th pick in 2022.
- Anthony (21 years, 27 days) is the youngest Red Sox player ever to debut with an RBI and a walk. The previous youngest was George “Boomer” Scott in 1966 (22.020).
- Long gone are the days when pitchers challenged rookies to see if they could hit a big league fastball. The Rays showed him tremendous respect. Their pitchers threw him 56% breaking pitches (10 of 18) and only 33% fastballs (six). Most of the pitches were out of the zone (10) and he swung at only two of them, both fastballs that were borderline pitches. He looked very calm in making good swing decisions.
- He hits the ball really, really hard. He hit a line drive 111.2 mph, one of the 20 hardest hit balls by Boston all year. He hit a home run in Triple-A 115.6 mph while averaging more than 95 mph in exit velocity.
- He has an upright setup at the plate with his hands high—a setup reminiscent of Shohei Ohtani and Christian Yelich—that enables him to be a more dangerous hitter on pitches up than down:
