CINCINNATI, Ohio – One role, two very different games, same Roman Anthony.
Last year Anthony was the No. 1 prospect in MLB and leadoff hitter for Triple-A Worcester Opening Day.
On Thursday afternoon he batted atop the Red Sox Opening Day lineup, the first player his age (21 years, 317 days) or younger to do so in over 60 years. The list is short: Bobby Doerr (1937), Billy Consolo (1954), Rico Petrocelli (1965).
Doing groundbreaking, unheard-of things is becoming par for the course for Anthony. The last year has been a long and ever-growing list of meteoric-rise moments: making his major league debut (June), signing an eight-year, $130 million extension (August), helping the Red Sox compile their first winning season and postseason berth since 2021, and winning a silver medal with Team USA in the World Baseball Classic less than two weeks ago.
“It’s good to be here and be here for Opening Day with these guys,” Anthony said as he stood in the visitors clubhouse at Great American Ballpark Thursday morning, “but it’s good in the sense that it doesn’t necessarily feel too much like Opening Day, given the fact that I got those kind of high-intensity (WBC) games.”
Hours before the game, Major League Baseball revealed the top 20 most popular player jerseys since the end of the World Series on Thursday morning. Anthony, who entered the season with just 71 career games under his belt, ranked ninth, ahead of more veteran superstars, including Bryce Harper, Juan Soto, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and reigning NL Cy Young-winner Paul Skenes.
None of these things appear to faze or overwhelm the notoriously even-keeled Anthony, who carries himself like a veteran and is becoming a leader on this team. These qualities, paired with his prodigious skill on the field, are why the Red Sox felt comfortable making a long-term commitment less than two months after his debut.
Anthony’s career is just beginning. There are plenty of mountains to climb.
He doesn’t see it that way, though.
“I just don’t set goals,” Anthony said. “I don’t have any expectations. I know there’s a lot of expectations from other people, and whatever it is, I’m not really into that, not really focused on that.
“It’s about just showing up every day, doing what I need to do in order to get ready and help this team win. And nothing really too complicated.”
Anthony planned to “let the game kind of dictate” whether or not he’d be aggressive on the first pitch.
He then rocketed said first pitch through the middle of the infield for a leadoff single, and became the youngest player in franchise history to reach base in the first plate appearance of the season.
Anthony singled in his second at-bat, making him the sixth-youngest Red Sox to have a multi-hit Opening Day; the list hadn’t been updated since 1973, when a 20-year and 154-day-old Dwight Evans played his first Opening Day.
By the fifth inning, Anthony was 3 for 3, making him the third-youngest Red Sox, after Doerr and Tony Conigliaro (1965), to collect three hits on Opening Day.
And he handled it like it was just another day.