Nothing about 2024 has gone how Justin Slaten expected, so why would the Red Sox rookie’s first All-Star break as a Major Leaguer be any different?
Selected in the Rule 5 Draft last December, the right-hander came to spring training and earned a spot on the Opening Day roster. He debuted on the second day of the season, and has emerged as a crucial member of the Boston bullpen, making 31 appearances and posting a 3.38 ERA, 2.44 FIP, and 1.031 WHIP with 45 strikeouts and just nine walks over 42 ⅔ innings.
Then, on Friday, the Red Sox placed him on the 15-day injured list with right-elbow inflammation.
“Just some fatigue, like the recovery just kind of started taking a hit,” Slaten told the Herald as he watched his fellow pitchers go through drills. (For moral support, he said) “Originally thought it was just typical soreness, I haven’t thrown back-to-back that many times this year, but then coming in after the off-day (Monday), got some work done and expected to feel better the next day, and just kind of felt about the same the past few days.”
The right-hander last pitched on Sunday, so the club was able to backdate the IL stint to July 9. The plan is for Slaten to take a couple of days from throwing to see if the inflammation “dies down.” If so, he’ll throw a bullpen at the end of next week and “roll right into it” when he’s eligible to come off the IL, which would be right after the Red Sox open the second half against the Dodgers in Los Angeles next weekend.
This won’t interrupt any grand plans. Slaten had already decided to stay in Boston for the break and hang out with teammates who are doing the same. Despite the high temperatures and stifling humidity this week, he’s enjoying getting to know Boston. He likes walking around downtown by TD Garden and the North End.
“It’s a lot nicer here than where I live in East Texas,” he said, “And if I were to go home, my parents would be working and stuff anyway, so I’d be spending most of the time just hanging out by myself. So it’s gonna work out.”
His other goal for the break is more personal.
“Honestly, I just wanted a little bit of time,” he said. “It’s my first big-league season, and I’m trying to adapt to that. I wanted a couple of days to myself. Maximize the days, mentally recover, and kind of soak in, reflect on the first half and then get ready to go in the second half.”
Slaten described the journey since reporting spring training as a “whirlwind.” In Fort Myers, he was trying to make his Opening Day roster while also getting to know a completely new team and find his role. It helped that the Red Sox were so encouraging, he said.
“They told me when they took me out of the Rule 5 that they didn’t take me as a project or anything, they took me because they believed I could pitch in the big leagues,” Slaten said. “That alone was all the confidence that I needed from them, to just carry that mindset through spring training.”
Bonding with his fellow bullpen arms helped, too.
“If you look at the bullpen, we’re kind of like a motley crew,” he said. “You’ve got a guy who was in the Rule 5, a guy who came from the Yankees, a guy who was undrafted and has a great story, a guy with fifth-most saves in the big leagues, Marty played in Japan, Booser wasn’t even in baseball. It’s a crazy group of people when you really go down the line and you think about it, each one of us has a story. I think Kenley (Jansen) might be the only one that has a more normal story, and even him, he was a catcher!”
The group has gotten quite close, and Slaten is grateful he can lean on his fellow relievers throughout the highs and lows.
“My career didn’t start off that night on the best note,” he said of his debut, when he replaced Joely Rodriguez with men on base and immediately found himself standing on the mound amidst a Seattle Mariners walk-off in Game 2 of the season. “But I was able to sleep at night knowing I’m a big-leaguer now, and then being able to get back in there the next day and have success, and being able to build off that early success. … I knew that it wasn’t going to be all rainbows and butterflies my entire season or career, it was just a matter of whenever it rained, to make sure that it didn’t pour.”
That mindset of not getting too stuck in the lows and turning the page is shared by his teammates, and a key reason why the Red Sox entered Friday holding the third AL Wild Card and just five-and-a-half games out of first in the AL East.
“We’re right where we thought we would be. We’re right where everybody in the clubhouse believed we would be from Day 1 in spring training,” Slaten said. “That was like the big thing, the theme in spring training: the biggest thing for us was just to tune out the noise, the only opinion that matters is the opinion we have of ourselves.”
“If you were reading stuff online, on social media before the season, you would’ve thought we never had a chance to be in this situation,” he said, though he added that he tries to stay offline. “Nobody thought we would be in this situation except for us, but at the end of the day that’s all that matters: everybody on this team, in spring training, believed that we were a playoff team, we believed that we were a playoff team after the first week, we believed that we were a playoff team when we were under .500.”
“You’re gonna have those losing streaks and winning streaks, stuff gets hard and people are slumping, and then you’re gonna get hot. It’s just a matter of not getting too low and not getting too high in those moments,” he added. “That’s, I think, what we’ve done perfectly. We are who we are, we have what we have, and we know that every single day, we’re gonna go out there and compete to win.”
The Red Sox have been one of the best teams in baseball since mid-May, but there was a moment in June when Slaten felt something shift.
“It was after the first loss to the Phillies. We come into the clubhouse, and of course we just lost, nobody wants to be too loud or anything, and it was Jarren (Duran), stands up and he’s like, ‘Doesn’t matter, we got two more against these guys, come back in here tomorrow and we’re gonna kick their (expletive)!’ And then what do we do? We win the two games,” he said. “And then we lose the first game to the Yankees and there like, I don’t know if anybody even said it, but there was just this vibe in the clubhouse after we lost that first game where it was like, we’re gonna beat these guys, too.”
“To me, ever since then, there’s just been this vibe, this energy in the clubhouse,” he continued. “Whatever happens the rest of the season is what happens, but until Game 162 is finished and we’re in the playoffs or we’re not in the playoffs, we’re gonna believe that we’re one of the top-12 best teams in the league and we’re gonna compete to win a trophy.
“That’s what this city is known for. That’s what everybody in this city expects. And we expect that of ourselves.”
