Red Sox’ Roman Anthony slumping at first-month marker; ‘I’m not hitting. It’s obvious, right?’

“When Roman is bad, he’s still OK because he still finds his way to first,” said interim manager Chad Tracy. “He always walks because he has a pretty good understanding of the strike zone. For me, when he gets hits pitches to drive, (it’s important) that he’s through the ball and it’s in the air and it starts to be in the middle of the field, or opposite side, and when you start to see that happening, that’s when we’re gaining on it.”

While the walks are still there, somewhat surprisingly, so are the strikeouts, at a 27.8% rate. For someone with good plate discipline, that’s a surprise. So, too, is the 82nd percentile chase rate.

“It’s not something you want to see,” he acknowledged. “But again, it’s early. I’m not going to let it worry me yet.”

“Plainly put, when Roman’s really, really going well,” said Tracy, “he’s not swinging out of the zone and he gets the ball in the air and drives it to the opposite gap. When he’s not going as well, you might see more ground balls to the right side. I think I’ve seen him make some really good swing decisions and seen him hit some balls to the right side.

“I know what it starts to look like when it starts to get good and we’re working toward that. I don’t think, obviously, he’s all the way there. You guys have seen him, too. You’ve seen a really good Roman last year, for the last month and a half before he got hurt and you know what it looks like as well. If we can get that guys, it’s pretty special.”

Having already removed Anthony from the top spot in the order, Tracy was asked if he had considered dropping Anthony again to take some of the pressure off him.

“Not at the moment, and I’ll tell you why: because it’s not a Roman thing,” Tracy said. “As a group, we have guys going through it. I look at that and I’m optimistic because I look at it and think, ‘I don’t think five guys are going to OPS .500 by September. Law of averages says these guys are going to get going because they can hit.

“If it were a Roman (only) thing, maybe we’d talk about it. But I think as a group, we’re all collectively trying to get going together.”

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