{"id":665036,"date":"2026-04-05T18:36:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T18:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/665036\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T18:36:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T18:36:40","slug":"roman-anthony-serving-as-dh-for-3rd-consecutive-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/665036\/","title":{"rendered":"Roman Anthony serving as DH for 3rd consecutive game"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Red Sox will look to left-hander Ranger Su\u00e1rez<\/a> to pitch them to a series victory on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Su\u00e1rez, who signed a five-year contract with the Red Sox<\/a> in January, struggled in his March 30 season debut against the Houston Astros. He lasted just 4 1\/3 innings (76 pitches, 44 strikes) and allowed four earned runs on seven hits, including a pair of home runs, issued one walk and struck out three.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were two pitches that, if he can take away he (would),\u201d manager Alex Cora said. \u201cThe cutter to (Yordan) Alvarez, and actually he tried to like, throw a two-seamer to (Jose) Altuve for a strikeout to freeze him there. You\u2019re not going to do that with him. \u2026 Just keep throwing strikes. He wasn\u2019t too good in the edges of the strike zone, and that\u2019s where he lives. He found his rhythm halfway through it, but then after that he left a cutter in the middle, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if MLB\u2019s new Automatic Ball-Strike System<\/a> (ABS) puts more pressure on pitchers like Su\u00e1rez to be more precise, his manager said no.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he was precise anyways, so I don\u2019t,\u201d Cora said. \u201cHonestly I haven\u2019t seen a change in the game. There\u2019s certain calls here and there, but as you can see teams have been very cautious, especially in this series.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know we talk about our team challenging in low-leverage situations, but if you look in to the whole league, everybody\u2019s doing the same thing. The only thing that we\u2019re not doing with the league is being successful in those challenges early, and that\u2019s where you lose it. But I think the game is being run the same way.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Saturday) there were some calls that probably we could\u2019ve challenged early, or them, but teams are being more cautious now. So I think it\u2019s going to flow, and for guys like Sonny (Gray), for Su\u00e1rez, it\u2019s going to be basically the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Red Sox entered Sunday 4-3 in batter challenges and 2-4 in fielding challenges (pitcher or catcher). Their overall challenge attempts and number of successful overturns rank near the bottom of the MLB leaderboard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was surprised,\u201d Cora said of seeing his team is below the league in low-leverage challenge situations. \u201cI think it\u2019s more about the conviction. There\u2019s some 50-50 pitches that you\u2019re like, \u2018Ah, maybe, maybe not.\u2019 There\u2019s others that you\u2019re like, \u2018Yeah, you should be a strike.\u2019 \u2026 But I think we\u2019ll keep getting better, and I think it\u2019s going to become more interesting later on. Like little by little, teams are going to wait, wait, wait, and from the seventh inning on it\u2019s actually going to start playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cora reiterated that the Red Sox haven\u2019t told any of their hitters not to challenge, only their pitching staff.<\/p>\n

Roman Anthony<\/a> will also serve as designated hitter for the third consecutive game, after a rest day in Houston on April 1 and a start in left-field the night before. This, Cora explained, was due to Ceddanne Rafaela starting the game on the bench while Masataka Yoshida started in left and Jarren Duran moved over to center. When Rafaela enters later in the game, the Red Sox won\u2019t have to sacrifice the DH.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look at the video and he was better compared to Houston,\u201d Cora said of Anthony\u2019s ongoing defensive training. \u201cWe\u2019re not there yet. And that\u2019s not the reason he\u2019s not playing. Today is the whole like, Ceddanne is not playing, when he comes in we take Masa out and we got three outfielders there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Red Sox lineup<\/p>\n

Roman Anthony DH<\/p>\n

Trevor Story SS<\/p>\n

Jarren Duran CF<\/p>\n

Willson Contreras 1B<\/p>\n

Wilyer Abreu RF<\/p>\n

Masataka Yoshida LF<\/p>\n

Caleb Durbin 3B<\/p>\n

Marcelo Mayer 2B<\/p>\n

Carlos Narv\u00e1ez C<\/p>\n

San Diego Padres lineup<\/p>\n

Ramon Laureano LF<\/p>\n

Fernando Tatis Jr. RF<\/p>\n

Jackson Merrill CF<\/p>\n

Manny Machado 3B<\/p>\n

Miguel Andujar DH<\/p>\n

Xander Bogaerts SS<\/p>\n

Nick Castellanos 1B<\/p>\n

Jake Cronenworth 2B<\/p>\n

Luis Campusano C<\/p>\n

Probable pitchers<\/p>\n

RHP Walker Buehler (0-1, 6.75 ERA) vs. LHP Ranger Su\u00e1rez (0-1, 8.31 ERA)<\/p>\n

How to watch Padres vs. Red Sox<\/p>\n

When: 1:35 p.m. ET<\/p>\n

Where: Fenway Park, Boston<\/p>\n

Broadcast info: NESN, WEEI 93.7 FM, WCCM 1490 AM (Spanish), WESX 1230 AM (Spanish)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Red Sox will look to left-hander Ranger Su\u00e1rez to pitch them to a series victory on Sunday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2375],"tags":[49222,858,5,141,48,2542,4,90,89,2543,793,18],"class_list":{"0":"post-665036","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-red-sox","8":"tag-abs-challenge","9":"tag-alex-cora","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-boston","12":"tag-boston-red-sox","13":"tag-bostonredsox","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-ranger-suarez","16":"tag-red-sox","17":"tag-redsox","18":"tag-roman-anthony","19":"tag-san-diego-padres"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116353550640262716","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}