“My stomach hurts. I haven’t slept much. It doesn’t really seem real, to be honest,” Anthony said, back in the bowels of Yankee Stadium, before Game 2. “It’s brutal. It’s confusing. There’s a lot of different emotions going on. It’s hard to put into words.
“I feel like I’ve worked all year…to get to where I am right now and be able to play a game (Tuesday) night. And for that to happen, it’s confusing. It sucks.”
What specifically is confusing?
“It’s confusing to be sitting here having to talk about this, and that it happened (again) and when it happened,” he said. “That’s what’s confusing. It’s been a confusing year. I’ve dealt with more injuries now than I ever imagined in my entire career.
“So, it’s confusing. I’ve done everything I can every day to prepare, and especially since I’ve been back with his injury specifically and I know what I was dealing with, and I’ve been on top of it to make sure that doesn’t happen. And here we are.”
The Red Sox activated infielder Curtis Mead, who missed more than two months with a broken left wrist, to take Anthony’s place.
Anthony was first injured on May 4, when he partially tore a ligament in his right ring finger, affecting his hand and wrist.
After a staged recovery process — including constant discomfort when trying to swing, which caused the Red Sox to limit his hitting activity for months — he finally began playing in minor league games again in mid-August. He returned to the majors on August 30.
“As far as I know, rehab, returning to play, was the right solution,” director of baseball Craig Breslow said.
Since returning to the field, Anthony’s hand has “never really been 100 percent,” he said. But he could handle it.
“In the last six weeks, I took some things that were uncomfortable, some swings that I didn’t want to take, but I was able to recover,” he said. “(Tuesday) night, it was just a little bit different…I knew when I caught the stick, the way it felt different than it has for the last six weeks – that was my call to talk to any staff member and tell them it’s time to go look again.”
Anthony started as the designated hitter in the first game against right-hander Cam Schlittler. His problem worsened in the first inning, particularly during a third-down check to end his first at-bat.
“The alarms in my head kind of went off,” Anthony said. “Basically, I committed to taking another at-bat and seeing how it goes.”
In it, he withdrew again, on another control move.
“I knew at that point it was time to look at it and put someone else in the game with a better chance,” he said.
The Red Sox found him a car service to Boston, where he arrived at 3 a.m. The goal, according to Anthony: to meet “the guys who have seen my hand the most,” the team doctors, instead of just getting an MRI in New York.
“My thoughts are all over the place,” Anthony said of the long, late trip. “You work this whole year to put yourself in a position to be good enough to make the playoffs. And for that to happen, it just doesn’t seem real.”
Anthony doesn’t know if he will need surgery. He also noted that amid a hectic summer comeback attempt, actual rest was minimal.
“Given where we were this year, and all the different things I tried, the different shots I took, and the routes I took, I guess I never really rested, did I?” he said. “So I don’t necessarily know the answer to that (surgical question).”
Breslow said, “We’re still trying to figure out exactly what happened and what the prognosis will be. It’s still so new that we’re gathering information, and I’m sure we’ll look into all of those things.”
Anthony returned to Yankee Stadium to be a part of the team.
“There are so many different emotions and feelings throughout this rehab process this year that to kind of come back to the same news — and worse — it’s like I don’t know,” he said. “It’s hard to have an answer to anything right now.”
Tim Healey can be contacted at timothy.healey@globe.com. Follow him @timbhealey.
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