By Charlie Wright | at February 28, 2026 8:07pm CDT
Red Sox fans shielded their eyes on Friday when outfielders Roman Anthony and Ceddanne Rafaela slammed into each other during a Spring Training game against the Braves. Fortunately, both players avoided serious injury, reports Tim Healey of the Boston Globe. “[Anthony is a] really big guy,” Rafaela said. “Hits hard too … I just was hoping he’s OK. I was more worried about him than I was about me, because I saw him in some pain, and I don’t like seeing my teammates in those types of situations.”
Anthony and Rafaela both drifted toward the fly ball off the bat of Ozzie Albies in the first inning. Anthony, moving to his left, reached out and snared the ball right as his waist collided with Rafaela’s midsection. The center fielder left the game after three innings, though not before launching a home run off of Chris Sale. Anthony remained in the game for five frames. Both players were back in the lineup on Saturday.
“Lack of communication,” manager Alex Cora said. “We’ve got to be better. When [proper communication] doesn’t happen, things like that can happen … If he calls it, it’s the center fielder’s ball.”
While Anthony and Rafaela are good to go, the same can’t be said for Triston Casas. The first baseman is rehabbing from a torn patellar tendon suffered in May. While he’s making progress in his recovery, Casas is not a candidate to be on the Opening Day roster, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com. The 26-year-old infielder is currently taking batting practice and participating in fielding drills. His effort and advancement at camp have drawn praise from management.
“It’s impressive,” Cora said. “He made the decision to stay here (in Fort Myers) in the offseason. The medical team, the trainers, and the strength and conditioning coaches, they did an amazing job with him.”
Cotillo added that Casas progressing to the point of playing in a Spring Training game remains a possibility. Boston wraps up its spring schedule on March 24 against the Twins.
The Red Sox went out and traded for Willson Contreras to handle everyday first base duties. The depth chart is uncertain behind the former Cardinal, though. Romy Gonzalez made 58 appearances at the position last season, but he’s likely to miss Opening Day due to a shoulder injury. The club intends to give utilityman Isiah Kiner-Falefa reps at first base in the spring. The free agent addition began his career as a catcher and has played eight positions in the majors. First base is the last one he needs to complete his positional versatility bingo card. Andruw Monasterio, acquired in the Caleb Durbin trade, has appeared in 20 games at first base, though only once as a starter.
On the pitching side, both Patrick Sandoval and Kutter Crawford tossed live batting practice on Friday, per Healey. Crawford missed the entire 2025 campaign while working his way back from a knee injury. Sandoval had Tommy John surgery midway through 2024.
Crawford held down a hybrid role in 2022 and 2023, but took over as a full-time starter in 2024. He delivered 183 2/3 innings of a 4.36 ERA. Crawford’s 3.85 xERA and 4.09 SIERA suggest he may have been a bit unlucky. The right-hander was set to be in the Boston rotation last season, but he hit the IL with right patellar tendinopathy in late March and never made it back.
Boston added Sandoval on a two-year deal last offseason with the understanding that he’d miss most or all of 2025. The left-hander has spent his entire six-year MLB career with the Angels. Sandoval came out of the gates throwing harder than ever in 2024, sitting at 93.7 mph with his four-seamer. He scuffled to an ERA over 5.00 across 16 starts before going down with an elbow strain in June.
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Dyer, Imagn Images
Glad the boys are OK! Totally avoidable. Cora was right. Growing pains.
These are the kinds of things you expect when the same guys arent playing the same positions, next to the same guys, regularly.
GaSox – I find it humorous that Cora of all people is chastising others about lack of communication. The best way to lead (manage) is by example.
No real surprise with Casas, hopefully he can regain his stroke in AAA.
Cora: “If he calls it, it’s the center fielder’s ball.” Sounds like Anthony didn’t defer. It doesn’t matter who is playing where. That “rule” was taught to them when they were 6.
See, I read the opposite. I stressed the “if” as in implying ceddane didnt call off Anthony, and, had ceddane called it, Anthony would’ve backed off.
How you feeling GA?
I was wondering how these guys know when to call someone off. When I played RF, the easy plays are easy. But gap shots had me wondering whether or not I was really going to catch the ball. I never wanted to call off the CF only to find out my mouth cut a check that my legs couldn’t cover.
You call it and go hard for it right up until the time the CF calls it… then you dive out of the way!
Making the best of each day Joe, I appreciate you asking. Been rough lately. You ever decide on a fun car for the good weather? Spring is coming fast!
You hit on something I was thinking with my comment about these guys not playing next to eachother enough.
Thinking of your experience, if youre not really sure the other guy’s reaction time, even if you know how fast he is, or take faith in his reads and route running, wouldnt it make it harder to decide on making a questionable call for the ball?
Fenway- reminds me of the ’62 Mets infamous ¡Yo la tengo! debacle- but not nearly as funny. Sox dodged a potentially major bullet.
“Crawford missed the entire 2025 campaign while working his way back from a knee injury.”
This isn’t correct. Crawford tore the subsheath in his wrist (at his home moving stuff around) shortly before returning from the knee injury – the wrist surgery on July 2nd ended his season. He had a bullpen planned for the day after the wrist injury.
If putting two outfielders on the IL at once last summer wasn’t enough, this should be another reminder that the Sox are one injury away from no longer having a surplus of outfielders. Inevitably if they traded one outfielder, another one would get injured soon after.
phillies – They have 7 outfielders if you count Yoshida, Eaton and Campbell. They can survive two outfield injuries simultaneously, as long they are not two of Duran, Roman and Abreu.
Fever, I dont think Yoshida can be considered a serviceable outfielder.
I know you champion him and feel management did him dirty in a way, but, he’s just not serviceable at the position. You’d just as soon pencil IKF in as an OFer as well at that point, he has logged time there….
Yoshida isn’t unplayable out there when he is healthy. He’s an elite bat to ball guy too. Really think he gets sold short because he was labeled as “the Japanese Juan Soto” and has dealt with injuries and inconsistent roles over his last 2 seasons.
GaSox – I watched Manny and JD manage in LF for 14 years, I can deal with Yoshida who is at least a 1.6 WAR outfielder.
Let’s put it this way, would he be playing OF for Japan in the WBC if he was incapable?
123 – Great post! He’s also being sold short because he’s being compared to 3 elite Red Sox outfielders which is unfair.
GA- I have to agree with Fever on this. Yoshida’s bat when healthy will balance out some of the defensive weaknesses. No doubt defense is not his strength, but serviceable is far from elite and I am sure other clubs have outfielders that are starting because of their offense. If needed he is capable of stepping in to take an outfield spot on occasion. There have been plenty of Red Sox outfielders who had the potential to be a liability in the field, but provided enough offense to make the trade off worthwhile.
Uncle – Exactly! We are not even talking about a starting outfielder, Yoshida is at best the #5 outfielder (2nd backup) on this team.
In 2023 Yoshida ranked 28th-worst with -4 DRS and that was while being physically drained from the adjustment to MLB (schedule, travel, etc) not to mention playing in all 7 WBC games that year.
Last year ironically 28 outfielders had no better than a -4 DRS.
Juan Soto -7
Trent Grisham -11
Jordan Walker -11
Nick Castellanos -11
Ron Acuna -12
Cedric Mullins -14
O’Neill Cruz -14
Joe Adell -14
Daylen Lile -14
Jung Lee -18
Mickey Moniak -23
Fever, remember DRS is a counting stat.
Less playing time means less accrual of negative value.
Yoshida’s DRS negativity was impacted by playing time, he was only.in the OF parts of 87 games
I’m not remembering seeing JD martinez in left field much or jd drew in LF at all but I drink a lot.
GaSox – Wait a minute, I recall you using Errors and DRS against Raffy all those years when he was near the top of MLB third basemen for Innings Played at 3B ….. why didn’t you instead defend Devers by using the same point? ;o)
Well that year Yoshida played 713 innings. Of the 27 guys who had a worse DRS than him, 11 played fewer innings than him.
He had one negative DRS for every 178.25 innings played.
So how many in MLB with more negative DRS than Yoshida also had a worse ratio of DRS to Innings Played than Yoshida? 23 of the 27. Okay, I’ll acknowledge Yoshida is 24th-worst in MLB …. not 28th-worst. ;O)
Didn’t you know I’d crunch the numbers? LOL
Queef – I think those were the years when you saw all 3 outfielders playing in right field at the same time ;o)
Noah Song pitched yesterday, I am happy.
He seems to be having a good spring. Glad he is finally getting an opportunity and appears to be healthy.
I doubt it, but it would be seriously awesome if he made the 26, or if he got traded to the CWS, etc. and made their 26.
Noooooo. Don’t trade him. No teams gonna send us anything for Song. Ya Noah?
He has done his time, definitely deserves a chance. Could be a call up if he doesn’t make it on the roster.
Duran’s load and foundation look better timed now, driving balls in with conviction.. last year he had this exaggerated inverting of his elbows before loading… same with Devers, both drove me crazy as they seemed late to their trigger.
Prophet of the SL
2 hours ago
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I really like the way Duran looks in spring training.
2 home runs against left-handed pitchers!!!!
I like the way Rafaela looks.
(I expect even more offensive improvement from Cedanne this season.)
Duran looks like the kind of player who could hit 30+ home runs this season, if he plays a full season.
It can hit hard and 400 foot bombs.
I don’t like making predictions, but I have a feeling Durant will be in contention for 30+ home runs and 30+ stolen bases this season.
Bogey, I like how the guys are looking so far as well. But then last night I watched all the major league movies and a quote stuck with me:
You had Willie Mays Hayes hitting bombs in ST in the second movie, and one guy remarks about the extra power, and the coach Lou leans over and says, ‘yeah, off guys who will be bagging groceries in a couple of weeks.’
Still, I looked over what the projections say, like FPG has been pointing to earlier in the offseason. I also looked at how accurate zips has been the last few years for the red sox on both sides of the ball.
There’s something special about the guys that the projection, and thus the underlying analytics numbers out there, have been missing consistently the last few years.
Im thinking we really improved in depth, and, between cutting down on drama and getting the youngsters more age and experience, things are looking up. And one projection I will make, is, that the projections are wrong, and boston will have hitters beyond the 20 HR plateau barring piles of injuries
GASoxFan
5 hours ago
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It’s unlikely Sale will be packing groceries in a couple of weeks.
The fact that Duran hit a home run against Sale (isn’t the last MLB pitcher).
However, I understand your thinking.
GASoxFan
5 hours ago
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Duran had a stretch in 2024, where he hit 18 home runs in 76 games. (June, July, August – 18HR!!!!, April, May, September – 3HR)
GASoxFan
5 hours ago
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Typically, Duran warms up by the start of the summer and hits a lot of home runs, but if he is consistent early in the season and shows his strength, he could very well be a contender for 30 home runs.
Fever Pitch Guy is right.Yoshida has to play because we need his bat.He isn’t a bad outfielder .He just doesn’t make highlight reel plays.Paying 18m for a career .326 hitter in Japan(.282 in mlb) to platoon some where as a part time of/dh/ph is silly.He really is their only pure hitter.
I think most of us realize it’s not his lack of skill that keeps him from playing. It’s where and when do you play him? That’s the question. Who do you take at bats from?
Gary, in a way that is sort of lack of skill. Its not saying he has *no* skill, but he’s surrounded by better players anywhere he can line up. To give him an AB typically, youre removing a better player in the process. Put him in the field and his bat isn’t so good that he makes up for what he costs in defense. If he had more power or speed it may be a different story.
He lacks the power to be a typical corner bat, and he lacks the baserunning ability and speed to be your tablesetter and make use of him at the top of the order.
Is he better than some other players out there in every day jobs? Sure. But not worth 18m which is why none of those teams wamt him as an upgrade.
He’s a good depth piece or PH bat off the bench, but he’s got too many better players surrounding him. And, the fact other teams know all this, is why they lowball breslow in trades, so, he refuses to make a deal from the logjam to not show weakness
He’s a “good” or perhaps decent player just not good enough to supplant the others ahead of him in the pecking order. Looks like it was just a bad signing. Too much money, not enough player.
Gary- Unless he is traded I think Yoshida will get plenty of at bats as the DH. I know his lack of defense reduces his likelihood in the field, but I think the high contact numbers will make him valuable in the lineup as long as he is healthy.
OK, simple enough, but that means one of the four outfielders sits almost every game?
Ideally Cora will go with the hot hitter most of the time. I guess we need to see how all of them are doing offensively as we get into the season. If Yoshida is not hitting I don’t expect to see him push one of the other four out. This spring Duran has been dominant but we have a long ways to go.
Yoshida has to play because we need his bat.
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I still like his bat, but whom does he start over?
Yoshida is nowhere near as good on defense as Rafaela, Abreu, Anthony and Duran. The Red Sox will likely be offensively challenged this year, so they will need to put their best defensive team on the field. Therefore, Yoshida should only DH.
I assume it would only be in the case of a trade or injury that he would be put in the field. With Duran tearing it up this spring I am hoping he doesn’t get traded.
Uncle: Agreed we should keep Duran at this point. I think the offense needs him. I am happy that Breslow didn’t overpay with Tolle or Early to get another bat. I think they can afford to start the season and see how things go and get another bat if needed.
They aren’t trading Duran.
They have done stranger things, but I can’t imagine a scenario that would lead to a Duran trade. That won’t stop the rumors from circulating.
Mrbarky
38 minutes ago
Fever Pitch Guy is right.Yoshida has to play because we need his bat.He isn’t a bad outfielder .He just doesn’t make highlight reel plays.Paying 18m for a career .326 hitter in Japan(.282 in mlb) to platoon some where as a part time of/dh/ph is silly.He really is their only pure hitter.
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Yoshida’s problem is that he’s the worst defensive outfielder of the Red Sox’s current field—Rafaela, Abreu, are elite defensively and Anthony, Duran above average.
Yoshida is below average defensively, so he’s the designated hitter.
It’s hardly a good idea to sacrifice defense when you already have four great outfielders unless he hits like Manny Ramirez or Big Papi.
There’s Cora in mid-season form with his stupid “we’ve got to be better” rhetoric.