Red Sox reliever unavailable for series finale against the Angels on Sunday
The Red Sox have hit a home run on new reliever Justin Slaten.
The young right-handed reliever has allowed just one run (0.87 ERA) off three hits with one save over 10 1/3 innings this season. In six games, he is slowly becoming a trusted bulk-inning arm for Alex Cora.
Slaten recorded eight outs, including shutting down the Angels in the eighth inning, during Sunday’s 5-4 win over the Angels.
Cora needed to use Slaten in the eighth inning because high-leverage reliever Chris Martin is dealing with left shoulder soreness. While the veteran is a right-handed pitcher, Cora elected to stay away from Martin and opted for Slaten instead.
“Try to stay away from him,” Cora said. “We don’t want him to try to do something mechanic-wise to get to where he needs to go, and then something happens with him. In that situation, it was Slaten.”
Martin struggled in his last appearance, allowing four runs, three earned, on Wednesday against the Orioles. He has not pitched since his meltdown.
“The last few days he’s been dealing with it,” Cora said. “So we’ll see how he wakes up tomorrow and how he feels. But we have to make sure this is right for his mechanics to be right. We don’t want him to hurt his right shoulder because he can’t get to where he wants to go to.”
Cora said it didn’t happen during Martin’s outing on Wednesday.
“Just felt it during the week,” Cora added. “He said it’s been going on and off for his whole career, kind of. He jokes around like that. But it’s been bothering him the last few days, and we have to be smart about it.”
If Martin needs time on the injured list to nurse his shoulder, the Red Sox could recall Zack Kelly from Triple-A Worcester. Kelly has tossed six scoreless innings for the WooSox, with four strikeouts in four games.
