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How Red Sox plan to fix Roman Anthony’s throwing woes ‘from the ground up’
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- How Red Sox plan to fix Roman Anthony’s throwing woes ‘from the ground up’
BOSTON — Roman Anthony’s early-season throwing woes have led to many different questions . Does he have the yips? Is it all in his head? Is this a problem that’s not going away?
In the minds of those who know Anthony best, however, the answer is a simple one: Anthony’s mechanics in the outfield, especially when it comes to his footwork, are out of whack.
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“It’s lower-half related, in my opinion,” said Kyle Hudson, the Red Sox ’ third base coach and outfield guru. “The arm strength is there. His arm strength is actually up from last year. The mechanical side of it, his lower half, has put him in a tough position to maximize that arm strength he has. It’s something we constantly work on. He’s working through it.
“When I look at it, the lower half is putting him in a bad position. He’s starting to throw across his body right now, especially on the one last night. He was very closed off on that one. Anybody that gets in that position and tries to make a throw in the direction he was trying to make a throw, it’s not going to end up very well.”
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Anthony’s throws from left field became a topic of discussion on the season-opening road trip when he didn’t come close to throwing out the game-winning run on a walk-off hit in Cincinnati , then allowed Carlos Correa to score from second on a Christian Walker single when his throw home bounced twice last Tuesday in Houston . After Anthony was held out of the outfield in all three games against the Padres over the weekend, he returned to left Monday. Discussion about his throwing arm reached a fever pitch when he unleashed an eighth-inning throw he called “terrible” and allowed two Brewers runs to score in Monday’s loss .
“Nobody’s gonna say that was a good throw,” Hudson said. “It wasn’t a good throw. He’ll tell you it was a bad throw as well and we’ve got to be better.”
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After the game, Anthony said he thought he was struggling to get a grip on the baseball early in the season. Both Hudson and manager Alex Cora, though, believe Anthony’s feet are where the issue lies .
“If you look at the video yesterday, crossed feet and shoulder toward where the ball went...,” said Cora. “I’m a big believer that everything you do in this sport starts from the ground up. I had a decent arm, a good arm, and my ball carried. I was a believer that you keep your feet spread out. You don’t get them closer. He’s actually going across — or behind. That’s going to take him one way and you have to make sure you get to the point you want to. It’s not happening right now.
“He has to be more linear to the target.”
At 2:15 p.m., four-and-a-half hours before Tuesday’s first pitch, Anthony was doing drills with Hudson and player development coach Chris Stasio in right field aimed at improving his footwork. The coaches rolled him balls with a pitching machine and helped him properly set up while simulating throws.
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“We’re out there every day. We’ve done it since he came up last year,” said Hudson. “The focus, at this point, is putting his body in a good position to be as efficient as possible with his movements and be able to be in a good position to get the throws out that we need to get out.
“He probably had the best throwing session I’ve seen him have in two years before the game yesterday,” Hudson added. “He works his tail off every day. He’s gonna be in an OK spot.”
On Tuesday, Anthony is once again serving as Boston’s designated hitter with Jarren Duran playing left alongside Ceddanne Rafaela (center) and Wilyer Abreu (right) . The fact that the Red Sox have those four players and Masataka Yoshida all in the mix for at-bats has helped them give Anthony a chance to work on things away from the game environment in recent days. That luxury, though, is not to be confused for a punishment, according to Hudson.
“He’s DHing tonight because of the makeup of the team. It’s not because of the throw last night,” Hudson said. “We’re 100% confident in his abilities to go out there. We saw what he did defensively last year and he started out the year this year (well).”
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It’s unclear when Anthony will return to the outfield but when he does, the Red Sox expect teams to keep challenging his arm like Cincinnati, Houston and Milwaukee have so far this season. For all the work behind the scenes, the results won’t become evident until the next time Anthony faces a tough in-game throw.
“He’s got guys challenging him right now,” Hudson said. “A couple throws that haven’t turned out how he wanted to. The game speeds up, you try to generate max effort throws and your body does different things than it typically did before.”
If the Red Sox have long-term concerns about Anthony’s arm, they’re not admitting it .
“He played right field (last year) and the ball actually had some carry,” Cora said. “We talked about in spring training that we wanted him to make sure he hit the lead guy on the cutoff and relays because his ball would take off and carry more than what we wanted. It’s not that he has Willy (Abreu)’s arm, but it’s a decent arm. We know he can get it there but we just have to keep working with his footwork.”
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