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Boston Red Sox outfielder Roman Anthony got a clean MRI, but that doesn't mean he's ready to start swinging a bat.

In a season of difficult moments for the Boston Red Sox, losing young star Roman Anthony to a complex finger injury was among the worst.

It’s been a long road to recovery for Anthony, and he recently went in for his six-week follow-up MRI on that injured hand. Luckily, the Red Sox finally got some good news on that front, with it coming back clean. Despite that, interim manager Chad Tracy cautioned that this doesn’t mean he’ll begin swinging a bat today.

“That does not mean that because the picture said that, that it’s like he’s hitting today. … Things are looking good,” Tracy said. “But it’s still going to be at his progress and how he feels, and the medical staff will determine each day if he’s going to swing and try and see where we’re at, and we’ll progress based on medical and his feelings, but definitely a positive step there.”

Anthony has been out since May 4th, when he was injured on a check swing. After some confusion, it became clear that Anthony suffered a partial tear of the CMC ligament in his ring finger. He’s been out since then, suffering from multiple setbacks since then.

Boston Red Sox Star Roman Anthony Is Suffering From a Unique Injury

Part of what has made the Roman Anthony injury situation frustrating for Boston Red Sox fans has been the confusion around his exact injury. However, that’s largely because of how unique Anthony’s injury is.

Alex Speier of The Boston Globe spoke to Dr. Mark Cohen, an orthopedic about it. There, Cohen explained that this is a unique injury in his 32-year career.

“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.”

Roman Anthony on his Injury Timeline

While Red Sox fans had hoped that this would be a quick injury for Roman Anthony, that hasn’t been the case as of now. In fact, the timeline for his return quickly became murky.

Initially, the hope had been for it to be around a six-week issue. That was until the complications occurred. So, now Anthony doesn’t want to put a timetable on things at all.

“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.’”

Even prior to the injury to Anthony, it had been a difficult season for him. In 30 games, he’s hitting .229 with a .354 OBP and a .321 slugging percentage. That’s good for a .675 OPS. So, once Anthony returns, he’ll need to hit the ground running for the Red Sox.