How Red Sox’s Roman Anthony Made Key In-Season Adjustment
The tweak has paid huge dividends
Roman Anthony is already evolving at the plate during his first season with the Boston Red Sox.
The rookie outfielder has made swift adjustments to bat .286/.405/.448. Although he started slow after his June call-up, Anthony is hitting .318 since the start of July.
Among the many signs of Anthony’s advanced approach is his ability to handle same-handed pitchers. He’s held his own with a .791 OPS and three of his five home runs against left-handers.
Less than two months into his MLB career, Anthony found a way to improve in those matchups.
On July 22, Anthony struck out four times against the Philadelphia Phillies’ left-handed ace Christopher Sánchez. Per ESPN’s Jorge Castillo, the 21-year-old responded by studying the game’s best lefty-on-lefty hitters alongside Alex Bregman and Red Sox hitting coaches Pete Fatse and Dillon Lawson.
They determined that stars such as Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto stayed behind the baseball, giving them more time to react to a pitch. Anthony adjusted his batting stance by moving his hands back to speed up his swing.
“The moves I was making are not practical against the arms we’re facing,” Anthony said. “There was a little too much going on.”
Castillo noted that Anthony had a .560 OPS in 48 plate appearances against lefties before the tweak and a 1.176 OPS in 31 plate appearances since the move.
While it was against a right-handed pitcher, Anthony used the modified swing to crush a manmouth two-run homer in the ninth inning of Thursday’s 6-3 win over the New York Yankees. He’ll test those alterations when the Red Sox face All-Star southpaws Max Fried and Carlos Rodón on Friday and Sunday.
