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The Boston Red Sox are still without Roman Anthony, as he battles an injury that one doctor hasn't seen in 32 years of work.

When Boston Red Sox star Roman Anthony left a game against the Detroit Tigers after swinging a bat wrong, there was hope he’d be back quickly. That was on May 4th, and he’s suffered what’s been described as multiple setbacks since then.

The exact nature of that injury has been a bit confusing. At one point described as a wrist issue, it’s now been diagnosed as a partial tear of a ligament in his right ring finger, or the CMC joint. Looking for more information on that situation, Alex Speier of The Boston Globe spoke to Dr. Mark Cohen, an orthopedic.

Cohen emphasized just how strange and rare this injury is for Anthony. In fact, in 32 years of work, he’s never even seen an isolated CMC ligament tear on the ring finger.

“I’ve been doing this 32 years. I actually have never heard of a ring finger-isolated CMC ligament tear,” Cohen said. “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.”

As for Roman Anthony, there is still pain when doing certain things. That includes swinging a baseball bat. It’s part of the challenge of this unique injury, which doctors were hesitant to even put a timeline on for his return.

“The hand doc said at the beginning, specifically, we weren’t going to put a timetable on this to where it was like, ‘OK, this is a 4-6-week [healing process],’ or ‘This is a 6-8-week [healing process],’” Anthony said. “[The doctor said], ‘We’re not going to put a timetable on it because one, we just don’t know the exact timetable, and two, we don’t want to get to a point where if we say it’s four weeks and we get to four weeks and it’s not there, then everyone panics.’ ”

For his part, Cohen believes the time for a true ligament tear to heal is close to 8-12 weeks. That means that Anthony still has some time to go before he can be back on the field for the Red Sox. It also wouldn’t be a shock if he was out to the All-Star break.

The Boston Red Sox Have Had Confusion About the Roman Anthony Injury

Part of why there has been so much frustration for Boston Red Sox fans about the Roman Anthony injury has been the mixed messaging that comes with it. That started when Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy called it a sprain with “no evidence” of a tear.

Anthony himself would refute that about a week later. He went on Baseball Isn’t Boring and announced he had a torn ligament, in direct contradiction with the team.

“I don’t know if it’s made clear, but it’s a partially torn ring finger ligament. My ring finger CMC (carpometacarpal), to be exact,” Anthony said.

Sam Kennedy would later apologize for the confusion. However, the damage was done, and frustration has grown because of it. Dr. Mark Cohen did his best to explain the confusion.

“That’s all semantics, too,” Cohen said. “A sprain, a strain, a stretch, a tear, they’re all the same problem along a continuum. We typically talk about a Grade 1, Grade 2, or Grade 3 tear. That’s just sort of a made-up way to try to identify the severity and describe the injury, a 1 being a tiny strain or tiny tear to an intact ligament; a 2 being a tear to the ligament, but some fibers remaining intact — so a partial tear; and then 3 being a complete tear where the ligament is completely torn. We don’t use ‘sprain.’ That’s more of a colloquial term than a medical term.”

Injuries Have Become a Major Concern for Roman Anthony

Roman Anthony is supposed to be the future face of the Boston Red Sox. Once the top prospect in baseball, expectations are that he’ll be a perennial All-Star. It’s just hard to live up to those expectations when he’s injured, and Anthony has now suffered two fairly major injuries in two seasons.

As a rookie, Anthony was called up on June 9, 2025, before signing an eight-year contract extension with the Red Sox on August 6th. However, his season would be cut short by an oblique strain that got him placed on the IL on September 3rd. Now, in his second season, he’s missed time with the CMC ligament tear.

Concerningly, both injuries for Anthony occurred when he was swinging a bat. It’s something the Red Sox will need to figure out quickly, or they risk watching his young career get derailed.