“We got the wind knocked out of both of us, I think a little bit there.”
The Red Sox appeared to catch a major break following an initially scary situation during Friday’s spring training game against the Atlanta Braves. In the first inning, left fielder Roman Anthony and center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela were both tracking a fly ball in left-center when the pair collided and went crashing to the ground.
Both players remained on the ground for some time but ultimately stayed in the game after being checked out by the training staff. Not only did they continue playing in the outfield and come up to bat, but each recorded hits in the third inning. Anthony logged a single, while Rafaela clubbed a two-run home run, both off of former Red Sox ace Chris Sale in back-to-back at-bats.
Anthony continued playing until he was subbed out in the sixth inning, and Rafaela was replaced in the fourth.
After the game, both Anthony and Rafaela attributed the collision to a lack of communication on the play. “It was a misunderstanding,” they explained.
Rafaela expressed that he was more concerned about Anthony’s health than his own. Despite being 5-foot-10 and 165 pounds, he seemed to take the brunt of the hit against the 6-foot-3, 200-pound Anthony. “I was just hoping he was OK,” Rafaela said. “I was more worried about him than I was about me. I saw him in some pain and I don’t like seeing my teammates in those types of situations.”
Anthony noted that each of them got hit awkwardly by the other. His left arm took a knock, causing a bruise, while Rafaela’s hamstring suffered the most impact. “I just wanted to take a second. We got the wind knocked out of both of us, I think a little bit there, and hit him pretty hard and wanted to make sure he was good,” Anthony said. “Weird feeling at first but nothing too crazy.”
Red Sox manager Alex Cora echoed Rafaela’s sentiments, pointing out that the crash was due to miscommunication. “When that (communication) doesn’t happen, things like that (the collision) can happen,” Cora said.
https://www.boston.com/sports/boston-red-sox/2026/02/27/roman-anthony-ceddanne-rafaela-collision-red-sox/