Does Roman Anthony have a classic case of ‘The Yips’?

Make a reference to the Yankees' Chuck Knoblauch in Boston, and Red Sox fans will chuckle, perhaps crack a joke about sailing a routine throw into the grandstand. Compare Knoblauch to a budding Sox star, and suddenly the laughter dries up.

After the latest horrid throw from Red Sox left fielder Roman Anthony, which directly cost his team a game this time, it's fair to wonder if he very well has a case of what's known as "The Yips." It's a well-known term in Major League Baseball and a label no player wants. In a case of the yips, their struggles to make what should be a specific, simple play become so horrendously off the mark, that the problem may be more mental than physical. They've historically proven highly challenging to overcome.

That's not to say that Anthony needs to be launching pinpoint rockets directly to home plate and throwing runners out left and right. But there's no excuse for a throw as bad as the one he unloaded in the eighth inning of Monday's loss to the Milwaukee Brewers at Fenway Park. Anthony had a real chance to nab Christian Yelich at the plate, but his throw was so woefully errant that catcher Carlos Narvaez had to retrieve it and make a last-second attempt himself. Yelich just barely got his hand in for the go-ahead run to make it 6-5, a run that proved essential to victory after Willson Contreras made it 8-6 with a home run in the ninth. But the Anthony throw was the root of the Red Sox unraveling.

"It was a terrible throw," Anthony said after the game. "It’s terrible. It’s bad baseball. It’s on me. At the end of the day it’s got to be at least competitive, and it wasn’t, again. It’s terrible."

Anthony deserves credit for being accountable after the game, and he has an impressive level of maturity for a 21-year-old ballplayer in just his second major league season. But this isn't really his fault. Ultimately, blame should fall on Craig Breslow and the Red Sox front office for making a kid the face of the franchise and their most important player and a leadership presence so early in his career. Anthony projects as an elite all-around hitter at the major-league level, which should be able to make up for mediocrity in other areas of his game.

But the throwing arm certainly looks well below average at this point. Can he at least adjust and improve to the point of being average at it? Anthony acknowledged the "simple" nature of the eighth-inning play, when he basically threw a sharp curveball instead of anything close to home. He may lack the strength and technique to build his arm up to a level that can match his bat, but he should at least be serviceable.

If this doesn't resolve quickly, Anthony had better hope he doesn't go down the same path as Knoblauch, who couldn't play second base anymore after 2000 and was out of baseball by 2003. Another famous example of the yips is former pitcher Rick Ankiel, who completely lost the ability to throw a strike, to the point that he converted to an outfielder (and was a decent one at that).

The best comparison to make for Anthony, however, is Khris Davis, who had the yips throwing from left field during the 2017 season. He wrote about it in The Players Tribune that July. He called it "The Creature." Davis moved to DH the following season, and hit a career-best 48 home runs, which led the majors. Anthony projects to have similar power to a guy like Davis, but the hope is that he strikes out less and has a longer career. But if he can't fix his defensive problems, he may end up with a fate like Davis had in Oakland.

Anthony won't be out of the majors any time soon. He's not converting to a pitcher. The worst-case scenario is that he can't play the field anymore and becomes a full-time designated hitter. His offense is, has been, and always will be his true value, anyway. But it would be less than ideal to have to move a player in his early 20s to that spot.

The solution is simple, but not necessarily easy: figure it out. Taking Anthony off the field, even sitting him for a few games, shouldn't be an option. He just needs to put in extra time to get his throws at least going in a straight line, then he can work on putting more juice into them. Perhaps it'll take just one good throw, one outfield assist, in a real game to erase any potential mental blocks that exist.

But after that throw against the Brewers? There has to be something going on upstairs. And while he did the right thing to put it on himself, it's really not on him. It's on the team for putting this much pressure on the kid to perform in the first place.

Note: This article was updated with information on Khris Davis, a direct comparison as a left fielder who described mental problems throwing the ball.