Garrett Whitlock had roughly 60 pitches to work with, and the plan going in was he’d pitch three, maybe four innings while shaking off the rust from his nearly month-long stay on the injured list with a left oblique strain.
Instead he nearly went five, and if Whitlock was rusty, you sure couldn’t tell.
The Red Sox right-hander was on point in Wednesday morning’s rehab start in Worcester, throwing 4.2 scoreless innings while striking out five in a dominant and efficient performance. Whitlock allowed two hits and a walk, including a softly hit but well placed double down the left field line, and threw 40 strikes on 61 pitches, including 12 whiffs.
While Whitlock said he and the team haven’t discussed the next steps as far as his return to the big league staff, he felt good enough Wednesday that he’d be ready to go if given the chance.
“I believe so, yeah,” Whitlock said. “Everything felt good and from my view of things everything is moving the right way.”
Whitlock was dialed in from the beginning, retiring the first seven batters he faced and dominating the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders with a six-pitch second inning. He utilized all of his pitches effectively, with his fastball consistently sitting 94 mph while overwhelming the Triple-A batters with his sweeper. At one point he drew three straight whiffs from Yankees prospect Oscar Gonzalez, who Whitlock struck out twice on the day.
Once Whitlock finished the fourth with only 47 pitches, it didn’t take much to convince WooSox manager Chad Tracy to send him back out for another inning.
“Trace knows me well enough by now that as I was coming in he was like ‘good job, you’re in the fifth,'” Whitlock said. “I didn’t really have to ask and Tracy didn’t have to beg, so it was good.”
Whitlock wrapped up his day by drawing a flyout, walking a batter and striking out Kevin Smith before handing the ball off to Josh Winckowski. If all goes well, Whitlock’s next time on the mound should come early next week in St. Petersburg during Boston’s upcoming road series against the Tampa Bay Rays.