BALTIMORE -- A bullpen that has already been thriving for the Red Sox got a major piece back from a prolonged absence, as righty setup man Justin Slaten was reinstated from the 60-day injured list in time for Thursday’s finale of a four-game series in Baltimore.
It was one in a series of roster moves, as key platoon outfielder Rob Refsnyder was also reinstated from the 10-day IL. First baseman Nathaniel Lowe was placed on paternity leave and can miss up to three days. As the corresponding move for Slaten’s return, lefty Jovani Morán was optioned to Triple-A Worcester.
When Slaten went on the IL with right shoulder inflammation on June 1, he was expected to miss the minimum of 15 days.
But the injury wound up morphing into a painful nerve injury.
“It’s called a transverse process,” Slaten said earlier this month. “It’s a little bony thing that comes out of your cervical spine. Essentially that bone in my neck was kind of pushing on nerves, pushing on blood vessels, causing a lot of shoulder soreness, specifically, like in the trap scat in front of the shoulder area, because there wasn't a lot of blood flow going through.
“And there were nights I was waking up three or four times a night, my entire arm was numb and it felt like 10 to 14 days, it felt like I was having muscle spasm in my shoulder. So that's kind of why we initially called it shoulder soreness.”
That pain was a distant memory by Thursday.
“It's been long, closing in on like 90 days from when I went down,” Slaten said. “The original thought was it would be a 15-day reset and recovery. It's been super long, obviously, super tough mentally. I feel like I’m in a really good spot right now. Obviously, everything that I went through has put me in a good spot right now so I'm super excited to be back.”
Slaten, 27, rejoins a bullpen that includes a closer in Aroldis Chapman who is probably having the best season of any reliever in the Majors. Garrett Whitlock has been stellar in a setup capacity. Lefty Justin Wilson and righty Greg Weissert have also gotten their share of big outs.
Where will Slaten fit in?
“We'll use him to get outs,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “We’ve got Whit, we've got Chappy. Obviously we’ve got other guys over there that we haven't been able to use because of who we have played the last 10 days. Baltimore twice and the Yankees, a bunch of lefties. Our lefties have done an amazing job. You go try to find a lane for [Jordan Hicks]. Weissert was good yesterday, but we'll use them for right-handed pockets and see how it goes.”
In his strong rookie season last year, Slaten was on the IL from July 12 until Aug. 26 with right elbow inflammation.
By the time he came back, the Red Sox were on the outskirts of postseason contention.
This time, they are very much in the mix at 74-60.
“Yeah, I’m super excited,” Slaten said. “Obviously the team has been playing phenomenal, and I'm just super excited to be back to help contribute down the stretch.”
In 68 career appearances -- all with the Red Sox -- Slaten has a 3.09 ERA and a 0.98 WHIP.