He's back! Red Sox reunite with lefty Paxton

This story was excerpted from Ian Browne’s Red Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

BOSTON -- One of the hardest parts about being a baseball player during Trade Deadline season is how unsettling it can be to get uprooted.

Players aren’t just machines who perform for whatever team they are on. They are human beings with families who get impacted by in-season transactions.

However, in the case of James Paxton, the veteran lefty the Sox reacquired from the Dodgers on Friday, the transition couldn’t be any more seamless.

Having pitched for Boston last season after spending 2022 rehabbing under the employ of the club’s medical staff, Paxton looked at home as he reentered the clubhouse on Sunday.

“It feels like I never left. I got welcomed by everybody, and it feels really good to be here,” said Paxton. “I’m comfortable here and just excited to be a part of what we got going on.”

For the Red Sox, Paxton will try to solidify the fifth spot in the rotation, a quest that will begin when he faces the Mariners on Tuesday night at Fenway.

Paxton’s professionalism and quiet leadership will be appreciated as he joins Nick Pivetta as the only other veteran in the rotation that also includes Tanner Houck, Brayan Bello and Kutter Crawford.

Boston pitching coach Andrew Bailey will try to make some tweaks with Paxton so he can escape the uncharacteristic control issues that plagued him at times with the Dodgers this season.

“We want to get him in the strike zone, because his stuff is good,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora.

Boston saw encouraging signs when it faced Paxton at Dodger Stadium on July 21, as he struck out seven in five-plus innings and displayed his best velocity of the season.

“What I saw last week after the third inning was kind of like the usual, right? Fastball up, breaking ball for strikes, a lot of swings and misses,” said Cora.

While pitching for the Sox last season, Paxton averaged 95.2 mph on his four-seamer and 94.9 mph on his sinker. For the Dodgers in ’24, he was down to 93.2 mph and 92.7 mph on those two offerings.

However, Paxton topped out at 96.1 mph in what wound up being his final start for Los Angeles. With Tyler Glasnow and Clayton Kershaw coming back, he was designated for assignment on July 22. The Red Sox showed quick interest and reeled him back to Boston.

It was interesting to hear Paxton talk about some of the tweaks he’s been making to get his velocity back up.

“I was trying to squeeze the ball a bit harder to get my flexor involved into throwing the ball, just because my arm’s not snapping through quite as hard as it was,” Paxton said. “So getting the flexor involved by squeezing the ball harder hopefully will create some tension for me to throw the ball a little harder.”

Coming back to the Red Sox for the stretch run was, in some ways, a perfect fit for the man known as Big Maple.

Paxton was so impressed by Boston’s medical staff that he exercised his $4 million player option to stay with the club in ’23, when he likely could have gotten more on the free-agent market.

So why did he leave the Red Sox last offseason when the club had interest in re-signing him?

“For me, it was a family thing,” said Paxton. “We wanted to be on the West Coast, closer to home. My wife wanted to be on the West Coast. And happy wife, happy life, so we decided to stay. But, like I said, I love Boston, and I'm really excited to be here the rest of the season.”