The Red Sox are losing another key arm at exactly the wrong time.
Boston is sending right-handed reliever Justin Slaten to the injured list with elbow soreness, according to The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier. Left-hander Raymond Burgos will come up from Triple-A Worcester to take Slaten’s roster spot.
It’s the latest blow to a bullpen that already took a hit three days earlier, when the Red Sox put setup man Garrett Whitlock on the 15-day injured list with right elbow inflammation. Now Boston has lost two of its most trusted right-handed relievers in less than a week, and interim manager Chad Tracy is staring at a very different late-game setup behind closer Aroldis Chapman.
Slaten has worked 4.60 ERA, 1.37 WHIP and 39 strikeouts this season. That isn’t the same level he showed during a strong 2024 rookie year, when he posted a 2.93 ERA, but he has still been one of the club’s more heavily used relievers. The concern here goes beyond the current numbers, though, because his arm has already been through this before.
He spent time on the injured list in 2024 with right elbow inflammation, then missed nearly three months in 2025 because of right shoulder inflammation. Boston has not announced any additional testing or offered a recovery timeline.
The team is calling it soreness for now, which is better than the alternatives, but any elbow issue for a pitcher deserves a hard look. Slaten also began the 2026 season on the injured list with a right oblique strain before finishing rehab assignments with Double-A Portland and Triple-A Worcester and returning to Boston on May 9.
His absence strips away another bridge to Chapman. Whitlock had been handling many of the most important setup spots before his elbow landed him on the IL, and Slaten was a natural candidate to pick up some of that work. Instead, Tracy will likely need to rely more on Greg Weissert, Erik Miller, Seth Martinez and the other available arms to get through the late innings.
Burgos gets another shot after making a quick impression in his last stint with the big-league club. He was optioned to Worcester just one week ago, but he returns after throwing two appearances for Boston, allowing two runs over six innings for a 3.00 ERA. In that stretch, he gave up only two hits, walked none and struck out four.
He also picked up his first major league save by closing out Boston’s 13-1 win over the Athletics on Aug. 7.
Two days later, he worked three more innings and allowed two runs in a 5-4 loss. The Triple-A results haven’t matched that success, as Burgos has a 5.54 ERA and 1.62 WHIP in 65 innings for Worcester with 54 strikeouts.
Still, the left-hander can give Boston some length, which matters when the bullpen is already being stretched thin. He made 14 starts in his first 15 outings for Worcester, so he’s capable of covering more than a standard one-inning role.
That doesn’t make him a like-for-like replacement for Slaten, though. Burgos adds innings and another left-handed option, not the late-inning track record Boston just lost.
Slaten’s move is part of a larger injury shuffle for the Red Sox on Sunday. Designated hitter Masataka Yoshida is also headed to the injured list with a left hamstring strain, and Mickey Gasper will take his place on the active roster.
Boston was already without Whitlock, Garrett Crochet, Roman Anthony, Trevor Story, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Curtis Mead. There are some reinforcements on the way: Story started a rehab assignment with Worcester on Sunday, and Anthony is set to begin playing for Portland on Tuesday. Those additions should help the lineup, but they won’t fix the bullpen problem.
The Red Sox have kept pushing through injuries during their surprising playoff chase. Losing Whitlock and Slaten within days of each other makes this one of their toughest tests yet.
Chapman is still there at the end. Getting the ball to him with a lead just got a lot harder.
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