The 31-year-old Slater is batting .200 with a .330 on-base percentage while slugging .244 this season. He had two extra-base hits and two stolen bases in 44 games.
Slater primarily played right field for the Giants, but he missed nearly a month after suffering a concussion in early May.
The right-handed hitter’s best season so far was the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign in which he hit .282 with five homers, seven RBIs and eight stolen bases in 31 games. His .914 OPS that season is by far the highest of his career.
In 2021, he hit 12 home runs in 274 at-bats (.744 OPS) and a career-high 129 games and put up decent numbers for a fourth outfielder again in 2022 (.774 OPS) and ‘23 (.748).
Slater was picked in the eighth round of the 2014 draft by the Giants out of Stanford.
For his career, Slater is much better against lefties (hitting .275 with an .804 OPS) than righties (.229 and .655).
The Reds are desperate for an offensive boost as injuries continue to ravage a year that began with high expectations.
They scored eight runs while being swept by Detroit over the weekend, blunting momentum from a three-game sweep of the New York Yankees in the middle of last week.
Jake Fraley missed the weekend series after going on the family medical emergency list, and fellow outfielder Stuart Fairchild was unavailable Sunday because of reported back tightness while T.J. Friedl (hamstring) and Nick Martini (thumb) are on the injured list.
Cincinnati leads the major leagues in stolen bases (128) but ranks 16th in runs scored (382), 27th in batting average (.225), 24th in OBP (.301), 22nd in slugging (.376) for a 24th-ranked OPS (.677).
Monday night the Reds begin a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies, who begin the week tied with the Miami Marlins for the worst record in the National League at 32-58.
At 42-48, the Reds are 10.5 games behind the first-place Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central, a half game behind the third-place Pittsburgh Pirates and a half game ahead of the last-place Chicago Cubs.
Cincinnati is five games out of the last wild card spot in the National League, but they would need to jump over five teams to get there.
TUESDAY’S GAME
Rockies at Reds, 7:10 p.m., Bally Sports Ohio, 700, 1410
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