After experiencing one of his tougher outings, Garrett Whitlock was forced to reflect. Within the Red Sox' dagger of an 8-4 loss to the Rays Tuesday night, the rookie gave up two runs on four hits over 1 2/3 innings. It was only the third time this season he had surrendered up multiple runs.
Lesson learned. Stuff like that happens to any first-year big-leaguer.
“I did not learn quick enough in the outing," Whitlock reflected. "Going into the second inning, gave up the first hit and as I was walking to grab the ball from (Xander Bogaerts) Bogey, Bogey looked at me and told me, hey, they’re ambushing fastballs, start mixing it up. I was like, that makes a lot of sense. I’ve got to be better about learning quicker and picking that up earlier and not just trying to force my best pitch in there. I’ve got to read hitters better and I’ve got to learn quicker in an outing and if I’d have done that, it could have been different but yeah, it’s just something I’ve got to learn a lot quicker than that.”
Whitlock gets a pass for not correctly the reading the situation. The Red Sox front office does not.
The Sox are now 3-11 since July 28, sitting five games in back fo the Rays for the top spot in the American League East, and just one game up on the Yankees and Blue Jays in the loss column. In a results business, results have not been good.
But what Tuesday night's debacle continued to remind us was the Sox' failure in seeing this sort of discomfort was on the horizon.
At the top of the list is their inability to get some sort of fail-safe when it comes to late-inning relief help. Matt Barnes simply hasn't been the same guy over the last 1 1/2 months. Yes, it's easy to say that after watching the closer blow three saves in four games -- including the four-run ninth-inning against Tampa Bay -- but the picture is bigger than that.
Barnes' strikeout rate since the beginning of July is just about 10 punch outs per nine innings. Leading up to that point it was at 15.17.
He still deserves a late-inning presence. But for the Red Sox to not see that they might need more of a backup plan than Adam Ottavino (whose stuff is actually better but can't prevent any runner from advancing from first to second), Hirokazu Sawamura, Josh Taylor or Ryan Brasier (who just threw his first minor-league rehab outing Tuesday) was a somewhat predictable miss.
And if they were actually projecting Hansel Robles to be an answer to this problem, that was a projection that was always going to fall flat.
There are also, of course, the issues when it comes to the depth of the lineup.
They can scream and yell about how Kyle Schwarber was the best hitter acquired. But here we are, 12 days after he was acquired, and a return to the field is still at least a week away. And while we wait, many of these Red Sox hitters are playing to the back of their baseball cards with others (J.D. Martinez) desperately trying to find that level.
Then there is the helpless feeling that accompanies this whole ball of wax.
It's one thing to circle the wagons, as the Red Sox proudly have done throughout the season. But when the wheels fall off a few of those aforementioned wagons and the repairman is a no-show, that's not a great feeling.
This Red Sox team - the 2021 Red Sox, not the 2023 or 2024 versions - needed a show of faith larger and more impactful than the one they got.
In a game built on projections, this team's round of educated guesses fell flat. Now they are paying the price.
