{"id":695236,"date":"2026-05-10T12:48:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T12:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/695236\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T12:48:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T12:48:18","slug":"red-sox-news-links-justin-slaten-returns-hopes-to-steady-bullpen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/695236\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox News & Links: Justin Slaten returns, hopes to steady bullpen"},"content":{"rendered":"

With all of the consternation about Greg Weissert\u2019s performance lately, it\u2019s worth remembering that he\u2019s not supposed to be a high-leverage reliever. But the mercurial nature of bullpens means that the Red Sox frequently have no choice but to use pitchers who don\u2019t inspire the utmost confidence. But at least the Sox can now knock Weissert down a spot in the pecking order, because Justin Slaten is officially back. \u201cIt felt like the longest month of my life,\u201d he said of his recovery form an oblique strain. (Tim Healey, Boston Globe)<\/a><\/p>\n

Had yesterday\u2019s game not been rained out and had Slaten pitched, he would\u2019ve found himself throwing to a surprising catcher: Mickey Gasper, who was penciled into the starting lineup despite the fact that there were no injuries to either Carlos Narvaez or Connor Wong. Here\u2019s Chad Tracy on why he did it:<\/p>\n

Pedro Martinez also found himself throwing to a surprising catcher at Fenway recently. Back in town to throw out the ceremonial first pitch, Pedro reflected on the strange fact that the recently fired Jason Varitek wasn\u2019t behind the plate to receive it. \u201cTo be honest, I\u2019m not gonna go into details without knowing why because I haven\u2019t really been inside the offices. I\u2019m pretty sure they\u2019re gonna let me know. There\u2019s gotta be a reason because Tek means so much to this city just like every one of us.\u201d (Jen McCaffrey, The Athletic)<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking of former Red Sox catchers, David Ross was also recently back in town, and he spoke about his time in Boston. (Peter Abraham, Boston Globe)<\/a><\/p>\n

Pedro certainly sounds dismayed about Varitek\u2019s parting, but he hasn\u2019t given up on the 2026 Red Sox. Nor have many of the players. \u201cI think we\u2019ve been playing pretty good baseball lately,\u201d said Ceddanne Rafaela. \u201cI think it shows we\u2019re a pretty good team and we\u2019re going to be in a pretty good spot in September.\u201d (Ian Browne, MLB.com)<\/a><\/p>\n

They\u2019ve certainly looked like a pretty good team when Payton Tolle is on the mound and on his game. He\u2019ll get the start today on what will likely be an emotional mother\u2019s day for him. (Alex Speier, Boston Globe)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With all of the consternation about Greg Weissert\u2019s performance lately, it\u2019s worth remembering that he\u2019s not supposed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2375],"tags":[5,141,48,2542,4,89,15409,2543],"class_list":["post-695236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boston-red-sox","tag-baseball","tag-boston","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-bostonredsox","tag-mlb","tag-red-sox","tag-red-sox-news","tag-redsox"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116550363020338590","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}