Garrett Whitlock relentlessly resilient despite needing season-ending surgery

Garrett Whitlock’s season, off to such a promising start less than two months ago, is officially over.

In the coming weeks, the Red Sox right-hander will undergo elbow surgery with Dr. Jeffrey Dugas in Birmingham, AL. Dugas expects that Whitlock will need the internal brace, rather than a full Tommy John.

It’s devastating news for both pitcher and team, but especially for Whitlock, who has overcome so many setbacks and weathered many storms over the last half-decade. As a New York Yankees prospect in 2019, he underwent Tommy John (performed by Dugas). As he recovered and rehabbed during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization left him unprotected in the Rule 5 Draft. The Red Sox scooped him up, and he enjoyed a standout rookie season in ‘21, posting a 1.96 ERA over 46 relief appearances. When Boston made an unexpected run all the way to the ALCS, Whitlock got to close out the Wild Card game against the team that hadn’t seen fit to protect him.

But in the subsequent seasons, Whitlock has missed significant time over multiple stints on the injured list, including season-ending hip surgery late in ‘22. Last Labor Day Weekend, he lost his younger brother, Gavrie, in a tragic drowning accident.

Finally healthy this spring, the righty earned a spot in the starting rotation and began the season with a 1.96 ERA over four starts. Then, he went on the 15-day injured list with a left-oblique strain. 10 days ago, he dominated in his first rehab start, going 4.2 scoreless innings with Triple-A Worcester. The Red Sox thought he was on the verge of rejoining the rotation.

Then, disaster.

“It was the weirdest thing. I felt fantastic in that outing, woke up the next day and couldn’t straighten my arm,” he said, holding out his arm to demonstrate.

“My arm looked like a freakin’ balloon, so I was like, the heck happened here?” he added with a laugh. “It’s a fluke thing.”

The Red Sox have become painfully familiar with the internal brace in recent years. Trevor Story needed it last January, and Lucas Giolito underwent the same surgery in March. The procedure carries a shorter recovery time than Tommy John, which typically sidelines a pitcher for 12 to 18 months. Whitlock fully expects to contribute next year.

“I feel like I’ll be ready for ‘25,” he said emphatically. “Gio got the brace, and he’s gonna be ready in ‘25… I’d only be two months behind him.”

It would be easy for someone who’s endured as much as Whitlock has in the last five years to wallow and complain. But that’s not who he is.

“I mean, obviously when I woke up that morning, I was like, hey I wasn’t expecting that, that’s for sure,” he said with a rueful laugh. “Because you know I’d felt so dadgum good in that rehab outing.”

“It’s one of those things where it’s a shock factor,” he continued. “But you take the time, and again, it’s perspective. Perspective is the biggest thing.”

“Just another thing that I’ve dealt with, but at the same time, I just gotta keep a positive attitude. It’s like, hey I’m still in this locker room, I’m still able to be around these guys,” he said. “I’m gonna get to dig in and do the stuff I do with the Jimmy Fund. I’m gonna dig in and be the best teammate I can be for this year, and then I’ll be ready for next year.”

“I’m looking to attack this thing head-on,” Whitlock said. “Just say, ‘You know what? Yeah I’ve been punched in the mouth for a couple times now, but at the same time, I have to wake up each day and just realize I’m extremely blessed, and again, just kind of, go here and be the best teammate I can be, and keep going forward, and keep attacking things the way I’ve been attacking ‘em.”

Whitlock’s wife, Jordan, is currently pregnant with their first child, a boy due on July 3. For the soon-to-be-father, that’s the ultimate silver lining in his latest rain cloud. He won’t have to worry about missing the birth of their son, and will be around significantly more.

“Now I know that I’m gonna be able to be there to hold my son in my arms and everything,” he said. “There’s nothing else that can replicate that feeling or that can take away from that.

“That’s why I’m saying, there’s so much more to this. Wake up each day, understand that there’s so much positive to each and every day, that’s how you attack this thing.”

“It’s kind of like that old study,” Whitlock explained. “Basically, if you talk positively to a plant, the plant grows. If you talk negatively to the plant, the plant dies. So I mean, why come negative and everything like that? There’s so much to wake up to and be happy about.”

And, he said, he’s ready to set an example of resilience and positivity for his son and hopefully, others.

“That’s what I can do right now, and so, kind of be that guy for each one of my teammates and again, just for the people of Boston,” he said. “People in Boston go through way harder things and they get up and they fight, they’re resilient. It’s like, hey, why can’t I do that, too?”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/JrHRIfC