Matt McCarthy: Second-Guessing the handling of Garrett Whitlock
On Monday’s edition of Zolak & Bertrand, we reacted to Garrett Whitlock being down with another elbow injury. Who’s to blame?
Could it be the Red Sox front office for putting him in the rotation and doubling down on their belief he could be an impact starter for years to come? Is it bad luck and just the reality of pitching injuries in baseball? Or the medical staff giving their seal of approval on an elbow ligament that has already had problems in the past…
Matt McCarthy isn’t willing to chalk it up to just a bad break for Chaim Bloom and the Red Sox. He thinks the second-guessing goes back to April, when the elbow first started barking due to elbow neuritis.
Check out the conversation!
Matt McCarthy: We got Tom in Quincy. Tom!
Caller: Hey. Matt, we talked the other day. We were talking about how this season’s just been so mediocre at best, right? And we were like, who knows? They could sweep the Blue Jays. They could get swept by the Blue Jays. On Monday, I’m not going to be surprised with either result. So, yeah, they won three. Losing Whitlock is huge. And I know Tyler doesn’t like the (Daniel) Bard comparison, but it’s the injury is the comparison, not the fact that Bard only pitched half a season as a starter or whatever the hell it was. The fact of the matter is, Whitlock is far more impressive out of the pen. And I don’t know if it’s because he just goes all out for those three or four when they need him and when they put him in the rotation, he ends up hurt every time. And now I feel for the kid, because very rarely do these forearm strains and elbow twinges end up just being something you can work through. I feel the kids can end up having to have a procedure and you’re shevling the kid for a year and a half.
Matt McCarthy: I mean, listen, it’s ia fair second guess at this point. I will say, though, I mean, I did want him in the starting rotation. I think you wanted him in the starting rotation, Milliken, I think the second guess is not the fact that they tried to make him a starter because I’m still, I’m old school. I think a starter is more valuable than a reliever, and Whitlock clearly has the stuff to be a starter. I think the second guess is coming off of the elbow injury this year, which was a real legitimate scare, not putting him back in the bullpen because it’s the only place he’s been able to stay healthy.
Tyler Milliken: I think that’s where it comes in and they realize with their starting pitching and their development, this was the guy they were kind of clinging everything to outside of (Brayan) Bello, this can be that workhorse. And, you know, the Daniel Bard comparison, once again, it wasn’t injuries that was between the ears. What happened with Daniel Bard. He couldn’t figure it out to that point. He developed the yips and we saw how it played out. This is a physical issue for Garrett Whitlock, where ultimately his body just might not be able to handle it. That’s what it comes down to. Are you going to back off, though? For what they described it as, it was a nerve issue early in April when he went down. Nothing with the UCL. They got it checked out. They said everything was fine. We’ll see if that was actually the case. Now, there was still like from what we saw, you could understand why they wanted him to become a starter. I think this is really the last straw where if he’s out for a lengthy period of time, how can you justify two different elbow problems in three months? You can’t. And when he was in the bullpen, people forget he got hurt out there too. This might just be an arm that’s fragile, and some guys, especially pitchers are like that. A majority of them are. If we’re being honest.
Matt McCarthy: It’s why he was available. I mean, you know, let’s not forget he’s coming off hip surgery from last year, which shut his season down. Now I mean, I think people maybe, you know, blame the Red Sox for that, given that they bounced him back and forth between the rotation and the bullpen last year, which that’s a real second guess. That was a first guess. That was a guess in the moment, you’re saying, what the hell are you guys doing?
Listen to the full segment!
