Justin Slaten Is More Than Ready For His Return to Boston

Worcester, MA — After missing nearly, a month due to a right oblique strain, right-handed pitcher Justin Slaten is on the path to returning to the Boston Red Sox. His rehab assignment began in Portlandm wgere tossed one inning while allowing one hit and striking out a pair of batters.

His next stop was Worcester, where he made his second appearance as he works his way back to Boston. The Red Sox, who are in need of high-leverage pitching, are awaiting the return of Slaten to provide that help. Prior to going down with injury, the relief pitcher had appeared in four games, tossing 3 1/3 innings for the team. During that span, he allowed one unearned run while surrendering two hits and two walks. He also struck out five batters.

In his rehab appearance in Worcester, Slaten started the game and tossed one inning, allowing one hit and one walk while striking out two batters. After the game, Slaten was asked about his the progress in his rehab assignment:

“I feel really good. I mean, obviously it’s up to them you know. I’m gonna do whatever they tell me to do, they have my best interest in mind and want me to be healthy and compete up there. But yeah, I feel really good about where I’m at.”

For the outing, Slaten tossed 18 pitches with 11 strikes. Leading with the four-seam fastball, he mixed in a cutter, sweeper and curveball multiples times each as he worked through his entire arsenal. With his fastball and cutter, he was able to generate three whiffs. The lone hit of the game was an infield dribbler that came off of his sweeper.

His fastball managed to top out at 97.1 mph, a fact that surprised even Slaten, who said “I was shocked. Early morning [game], so it’s hard to get up and get going. I was pretty pumped, saw the velos out there and obviously feeling good about how the body feels, how the arm feels and how the oblique feels. I think we’re in a very good spot."

Despite the talent Slaten has shown since making the major-league roster back in 2024, injuries have seemingly slowed him down each season. That fact hasn’t been lost on the right-hander, who told the media “Obviously you don’t want to be seen as someone who’s injury prone. But you know, it is what it is, you can’t feel bad for yourself. You just have to attack it, keep the positive mindset of like it is what it is, I gotta get back healthy as soon as possible."

It's no wonder that Slaten has been eager to get back to Boston and help his teammates as they deal with a coaching overhaul and an attempt to claw their way back into playoff conversation. The 28-year-old doesn’t care that it’s only the beginning of May, admitting that it’s starting to get too late into the season to keep saying it’s early.

“At the end of the day, I know we’re running out of time to say it’s early, but you know you look at the standings. It’s not like we’ve dug ourselves in so deep of a hole, and so for me, it’s just like how can I get back and how can I help us win games as fast as possible.”