Garrett Whitlock starting pitcher preview, April 28th at Toronto Blue Jays

Garrett Whitlock (Photo from MLB.com Video: https://www.mlb.com/gameday/red-sox-vs-rays/2022/04/23/661941#game_state=final,game_tab=videos,game=661941)

Garrett Whitlock, a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, is looking to get his first Major League Baseball victory today as a starting pitcher.

This is his second start of his entire Major League career and his first in Canada.

In his last start, he pitched four scoreless innings in which the Boston Red Sox ultimately lost 3-2 to the Tampa Bay Rays in 10 innings. In that game, the Rays pitchers kept the Red Sox batters hitless (and both teams were kept scoreless) through the first nine innings.

The major questions that everybody has right now are, how many innings will Garrett Whitlock pitch today? And is he going to be a regular member of the Red Sox starting rotation?

The answer to the first question seems obvious. It seems like he is not going to throw any more than five innings pitched.

He wasn't given a chance to go five innings in his first Major League start, and he probably should have been allowed to, just because of that reason alone, to try to qualify for a win (as a starting pitcher).

For today's game, he might be given a longer leash (to throw more pitches and pitch longer) because we don't know how well Tanner Houck and Kutter Crawford are going to pitch when they are back in action for the Red Sox (since they weren't allowed to enter the country of Canada because they haven't taken the COVID-19 vaccine, which probably shouldn't even be called a vaccine anyway for everyone who knows how extremely dangerous and deadly it is).

I also thought he should have been allowed to throw more than 48 pitches (33 of them for strikes) in his first Major League start.

Just for comparison, he threw 39 pitches (28 of them for strikes) on April 12th in four innings pitched (in relief) against the Detroit Tigers in a 5-3 Red Sox win.

It seems obvious that whatever happens today with Whitlock is going to determine his pitching role for the future on the Red Sox. The longer he pitches, the more likely he is going to be a starting pitcher.

Right now, his role on the Red Sox seems to be that he is stuck in a position to pitch at the most three or four innings and then get out of there.

Obviously, as a potential starting pitcher in the future for the Red Sox, Whitlock will be given a longer leash whenever he starts in a game the rest of the way this season.

Whitlock has been used five times this regular season and the Red Sox are 3-2 in those games.

This regular season, Whitlock has performed as the best pitcher on the Red Sox this regular season.

Also, he is currently second (only behind Michael Wacha) as the best pitcher on the Red Sox with the best winning percentage.

The last two sentences of what I just said are objective facts (they are not opinions or just feelings I have about a particular pitcher or pitchers).

Whitlock's 0.66 ERA is best among Red Sox starting pitchers and it is better than everyone else on the Red Sox except for Hansel Robles and John Schreiber (who have 0.00 ERA's).

Garrett's ERA is 0.00 when Boston wins and it is 1.42 when they have lost this regular season. Only Hansel Robles' 0.00 ERA is better than Whitlock's when the Red Sox have lost this regular season.

Whitlock's performance won-lost record this season (regardless if Boston actually wins any one specific game or not) is 1.462 wins and .167 losses.

(The above won-lost record in the previous sentence includes everything he has done both good and bad this regular season.)

That means the only time he has messed up was on Opening Day when he gave up a solo home run to DJ LeMahieu in the bottom of the eighth inning.

His performance losses are fewest on the Red Sox other than John Schreiber.

Whitlock has helped the Red Sox actually win .815 games and actually lose .167 games. Only John Schreiber and Austin Davis have lost fewer games. He is tied with Matt Strahm for losing .167 games this regular season.