There’s no beef between Garrett Whitlock and Derek Holland. If anything, the “battle” to wear No. 22 for the Boston Red Sox this season was more of a confusion than anything acrimonious.
The backstory actually is fairly simple. Whitlock, who arrived with the Red Sox last season via the Rule 5 draft, wore No. 72 as a rookie. He was stellar for Boston pretty much wire-to-wire, and should be a mainstay with the Red Sox for years to come.
Because of a connection to ex-Sox hurler Rick Porcello, Whitlock wanted to wear No. 22 this season. So, he started off with No. 22 in spring training, but then was back to wearing No. 72. Nobody really knew why at first. Then, it was revealed Holland, a veteran reliever, received No. 22.
Holland has worn No. 45 pretty much his entire career, but that obviously was off limits in Boston because it’s Pedro Martinez’s retired number. He explained Friday on WEEI’s “Gresh and Keefe” why he elected to switch to 22.
"The crazy thing about 22 is it’s with me, my agent, my brother and one of his buddies. Growing up, that was one of the popular numbers that would show up on everything, and it’s continued to be something that’s been out there," Holland said. "If I go to a casino, I’m gonna bet on 22, everything I do it somehow falls back on 22. And to throw it into perspective and give you an idea of how much it pops up, it’s even the bus that the Joker drives in the Batman movie 'The Dark Knight.' So if you take a look, you’ll see 22 showed up a lot, and that’s why I went with it.
Makes sense. But how did he end up with it instead of Whitlock?
“Now I had no idea of what had happened with Whitlock wanting that number for Porcello. I sat and talked to him about it. I'm a very superstitious guy, and one of the things that I brought up to him too was look at what you did last year with the number you had. It’s a different number, I get it, but at the same time you’re building your own legacy with that number. People are going to know you because of that number, wouldn’t you want that? Those are the kind of things to think about.
“And I wasn’t trying to take him away from his number by any means, I told him too, multiple times, we’ve continued to talk about it, I told him if he wants that number, I’ll gladly give it to (him). I have no issue with that. I just got 22 because of the past with my family, and my brother and my agent knowing about 22, that was the only reason why I really got it. And, again, I couldn’t get 45, some really good pitcher I guess decided to have that.”
There are so many guys at spring training that it can be easy for there to be a little bit of number confusion. What Holland doesn’t know is how he ended up being granted permission to wear it even thought Whitlock -- a lock to make the big league roster -- had it.
“That’s the only thing I don’t know, I can’t really answer that because I don’t really know. I got here and when they asked me I said I’d love to have 22 if possible and that was it.”
Basically, Whitlock just made a nice gesture by deferring to the veteran pitcher. If Whitlock was adamant about keeping the number, then it sounds like Holland granted him the right of first refusal.
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