Boston Red Sox RHP Garrett Whitlock may not earn many Rookie of the Year votes, but he pretty clearly deserves praise for his outstanding first big-league season. Whitlock leads the Boston relief corps in WAR and is among the league leaders in that category among his relieving brethren. While he lost a critical game on Monday, the fact that he pitched the ninth inning and started the 10th at all is quite telling. Fantasy baseball managers should pay more attention to Whitlock.
What we should read into Monday's result is that Whitlock may well become Boston's preferred closer. We should not focus on how the first place Tampa Bay Rays tied the game on a fluky Austin Meadows inside-the-park home run that, with an actual center fielder in the game and help from fellow outfielders, should have been merely a double. Nelson Cruz keyed the 10th-inning rally but again, it was not exactly Whitlock's fault. The Red Sox are scrambling, and Whitlock (with a 1.86 ERA) is a key player.
Matt Barnes leads the Red Sox with 24 saves, but even before testing positive for COVID-19, his August struggles cost him the closer's role. Adam Ottavino went five months permitting nary a home run,