Worldwide Sports News

Why Bregman believes Roman Anthony can be a ‘superstar for a long time' originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

Roman Anthony received a rude awakening to Major League Baseball, tallying just one hit over his first six games with the Boston Red Sox and owning a .114 batting average through 15 games since his June 9 debut.

But MLB’s No. 1 prospect stayed the course — and he’s starting to turn the corner.

Anthony went 3-for-5 with a pair of RBIs in Monday’s win over the Colorado Rockies while belting his first career home run at Fenway Park, a 418-foot missile to center field. The smooth-swinging 21-year-old has recorded multiple hits in six of his last 10 games, posting a .386 batting average and .994 OPS in that span.

None of Anthony’s recent success is a surprise to Red Sox veteran Alex Bregman, who heaped high praise on the rookie after Monday’s game.

“Super special player,” Bregman said of Anthony. “I think he’s going to be a superstar in this league for a long time. He’s fun to watch and it’s been awesome to watch him go about his business.

“He’s the same guy every day when he shows up to the ballpark, whether he’s 0-for-4 or 4-for-4. The maturity that he has at his age, it’s special, and it’s part of the reason why he’s so good.”

Anthony showed admirable mental fortitude in June despite his struggles at the plate and in the field. (He committed an error in his first MLB game when he let a ground ball skip by him in right field.) Even amid a dreadful 2-for-27 start to his big-league career, Anthony kept the same approach, staying patient at the plate and producing hard-hit balls that resulted in outs but hinted at his potential.

Anthony appears to be finally realizing that potential, and it’s greatly benefiting the Red Sox, who have gone 7-3 amid Anthony’s 10-game hot streak while averaging a ridiculous 7.6 runs per game — by far the most in the majors during that span.

“The last week, 10 days have been an example of what we feel like this team is capable of,” Bregman added. “I think the future is extremely bright here. Looking forward to continuing to play with those guys. But yeah, it’s been fun to watch them go about their business.”

Boston’s bold decision to trade star slugger Rafael Devers earlier this month further signaled the team’s belief in the “Big Three” of Anthony, Marcelo Mayer and Kristian Campbell. While that prospect trio has produced mixed results so far — Mayer is hitting a pedestrian .214 since his May 26 call-up, while Kristian Campbell was sent back to Triple-A on June 19 amid a prolonged slump — Anthony’s recent breakout is a reminder of this group’s lofty ceiling, and the impact each player can make if they live up to their lofty expectations.

The Red Sox will aim for their fifth consecutive win Tuesday night in another matchup with the Rockies at 7:10 p.m. ET.

Landen Roupp emerging as unsung hero of Giants' staff after another stong start originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants have had seven pitchers make multiple starts for them this season, and it’s pretty safe to say that Landen Roupp has found himself in the fewest number of headlines and social media posts. 

Logan Webb and Robbie Ray are the MLB All-Stars, and while Justin Verlander is winless, his hard-luck pursuit of 300 wins has made him a national story at times. Hayden Birdsong is the hard-throwing prospect who took a trip through the bullpen early on and lately has tried to figure out where his command has gone. Kyle Harrison surprisingly started the year in Triple-A and then became the centerpiece of the Rafael Devers trade. Jordan Hicks also ended up in Boston, and before that, it seemed like every start led to plenty of questions about whether he would get another one. 

And then there’s Roupp, who has taken the ball every five days and given the Giants five strong innings more often than not. With one run over five in Monday’s 3-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies, the right-hander lowered his ERA to 3.39. If the postseason started today, the Giants would be the National League’s third Wild Card team — and Roupp would be a pretty easy selection to start Game 3 behind Webb and Ray.

Roupp is 1 2/3 innings shy of qualifying for leaderboards, but if he did, he would rank 15th in the NL in ERA. At home, he has been even better, posting a 1.85 ERA that ranks fifth in the league. 

Just about everything about Roupp’s season has been positive, but it’s hard to ignore the number that’s hanging over it all, one that leads to some natural questions about whether he would be ready for an October start. 

At 90 1/3 innings, Roupp is already well past his 2024 total (76 2/3 across three levels). He’s on pace for about 160 innings, which would be a remarkable year-over-year jump, especially in today’s game, but it’s not something he’s at all concerned about. 

“There’s been no talks about an innings limit or anything like that,” he said. “For me, it’s just about keep competing and get the work done in the training room to go out there every fifth day and go at least five. I feel good, I feel strong, and I expect to be pitching in the playoffs.”

If the Giants get there and Roupp is ready for whatever they need, it’ll be in part because of the trust that pitching coach J.P. Martinez has in the 26-year-old. The staff made Roupp the surprise fifth starter coming out of camp, and Martinez doesn’t see any need to scale things back. On a recent episode of “Giants Talk,” he talked of how Roupp has a “super strong lower half” and a “measured delivery” that never looks out of control. He’s physically built for a heavy workload, and his starts rarely look stressful. 

“If he’s feeling good physically and he’s pitching really well, I don’t have too much of a concern of putting a cap on him or putting a ceiling on him,” Martinez said. “I think the limits are limits until you kind of break them, and I think this is a chance for him to have a breakout season, so I’m not too concerned about putting the governor on him just yet.”

Roupp made just 32 starts in the minor leagues and spent most of last season in the bullpen, but he took on a heavy workload at UNC Wilmington, throwing 101 innings in his final season and then 107 1 /3 at three levels in his first season as a professional. This is something he has done before, and the muscle memory hasn’t gone away. 

But he also has some new tricks. 

Roupp said he spoke to perennial NL innings leader Logan Webb earlier this year and adjusted his between-starts routine. Traditionally, Roupp would play catch the day after a start, but Webb told him to keep it simple.

“He’s like, ‘Do nothing the next day,'” Roupp said. “So I do nothing. That’s kind of what he does and what he instilled into me is to take a full day.”

Roupp will get a massage Tuesday and maybe some treatment, and for the most part, the goal the next day is to relax and let his body reset for 24 hours. So far, the adjustments are working. 

Roupp allowed just one run over five innings Monday, and it came after a grounder took a weird hop on Wilmer Flores and turned into a double. He allowed four hits and struck out three, twice getting All-Star Kyle Schwarber while showing how far he has come since this time last year. 

In the first inning, Schwarber took a sinker and curveball for called strikes. When Roupp went out of the zone with an elevated cutter, Schwarber couldn’t hold up. In the third, Roupp again dropped a curve for a strike before getting ahead with another sinker. A diving changeup ended the at-bat and inning, stranding a runner. 

“I think the changeup is what has helped me get through lineups and helped me all year,” he said. “I’ve got to work on the cutter a little bit but I’m still learning each and every game and I expect to keep getting better.”

The Giants desperately need that to continue in the second half. Their rotation depth is all of a sudden not as strong as they expected, and the next man up — Harrison — is across the country. They look like a team that might need an arm at the deadline, but it won’t be for Roupp’s spot. At the end of the longest first half of his life, he isn’t slowing down. 

“He just had great energy out there,” manager Bob Melvin said Monday night. “It just felt like it was kind of early in the season energy, not you’re coming down to the (end of) the half and you’ve got some innings under your belt. A lot of times you kind of hit a little bit of a wall and you’re looking forward to the break, but man, it looked like it was early in the season for him. It’s obviously a tough lineup to navigate and they made him throw some pitches and got him out after five, but the last three times out, he’s been really good.”

Download and follow the Giants Talk Podcast

Travis d’Arnaud knows Jacob deGrom better than any other catcher in baseball. He caught the hard-throwing right-hander 60 times when they played together with the New York Mets, the most frequent backstop the former Cy Young Award winner has thrown to in his career.

That familiarity did d’Arnaud and the Angels well en route to their 6-5 victory over the Rangers (44-47) on Monday night, in which Nolan Schanuel walked off their American League West foes in the ninth inning by drawing a bases-loaded, RBI walk.

The veteran catcher ambushed deGrom in the second inning for a two-run home run, just hitting the ball hard enough — 97.4 mph — over the left-field wall.

D’Arnaud’s home run broke deGrom’s Rangers franchise-record streak of 14 consecutive starts with two or fewer runs given up — and provided the Angels (44-46) with an early 3-2 lead.

“Getting lucky to hit a homer against any Cy Young winner is really special,” said d’Arnaud, who went 2-for-4 with three RBI.

Later, with deGrom in line for the win, d’Arnaud tied the score during a two-out rally in the sixth against relief pitcher Shawn Armstrong, lining a double to deep left-center field to score Luis Rengifo, who reached base on a single.

“We were in every game right till the end, in every single game in Toronto, and so it showed we were still going to fight to the last out,” d’Arnaud said, when asked about not being able to come through as a team with three, one-run losses against the Blue Jays, “and today we were able to prevail, which is a huge step for us.”

A batter later, pinch-hitter LaMonte Wade Jr. channeled the “Throwback Week” theme at Angel Stadium, reverting to the clutch hitting that earned him the nickname “Late Night LaMonte” in San Francisco. The 31-year-old, wearing the '70s-style Angels uniform, singled to center to give the Angels a 5-4 lead.

Interim manager Ray Montgomery, who was ejected in the seventh innings arguing balls and strikes after Mike Trout looked at an inning-ending strike three call, said Wade waited for his opportunity to make an impact — even with limited at-bats after Jorge Soler’s return from injury creating a log jam in the outfield.

“Anytime off the bench you can get some sort of feeling and get some reps, it’s good, and you hope it carries over,” said Montgomery, who watched the remainder of the game from the clubhouse. “Huge at-bat by him.”

Read more:The Angels have used only five starting pitchers this season. Why that's significant

DeGrom didn’t flex the ace-caliber stuff he often tests foes with. On Monday, he gave up three earned runs and five hits across five innings, striking out five and walking two.

Yusei Kikuchi, coming off Sunday’s announcement that he earned an All-Star berth (his second of his career), didn’t live up to the pitcher’s duel billing either. The Japanese southpaw labored through an almost-20 minute first inning — in which he gave up a two-run home run to Corey Seager — and never settled down during his five innings.

“I didn't have my best stuff, but the team really picked me up today,” Kikuchi said in Japanese through an interpreter.

Before d’Arnaud’s tying double, Kikuchi was bound to be the losing pitcher, giving up four runs on six hits, struggling to accrue the same strikeout success he’d achieved as of late. He struck out just four, tied for the second-fewest he’d tallied in 2025 and the first time he’d done so since late May against the Yankees.

But none of that mattered when Schanuel came to the plate with the bases loaded, after Zach Neto was intentionally walked, washing away an 0-for-4 night with his walk-off walk.

“I didn't need a hit,” Schanuel said. “I put my pride aside.”

Reliever R&R

The Angels placed veteran right-handed relief pitcher Hunter Strickland on the 15-day injured list with right-shoulder inflammation on Monday afternoon. Strickland, who had pitched 22 innings in 19 games to the tune of a 3.27 earned-run average for the Angels, said he felt his arm get stiff before pitching against the Blue Jays on Sunday.

During his outing, in which Strickland struck out one batter in a scoreless inning, the 36-year-old said the stiff sensation in his arm got worse, causing the IL stint. Cuban righty Víctor Mederos was called up from triple-A Salt Lake City in his place.

Read more:Angels' Ron Washington will remain on medical leave for rest of season

“We're just hoping for the best and see what they say,” Strickland said, adding that he will get an MRI on Tuesday.

Robert Stephenson (stretched nerve in right bicep) said he began throwing again on Monday — soft toss — after soft-tissue recovery helped “fully heal” the nerve.

“I don't think it's gonna be a quick process, but at least I can start building up,” said Stephenson, who is in the second year of a three-year, $33 million contract with the Angels.

Stephenson has thrown just one inning as a member of the Angels, hurting himself in his second appearance back from Tommy John surgery on May 30.

Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.