Boston Red Sox Making Interesting Decision with Pitcher as He Comes Back From Injury

The Boston Red Sox are making an interesting decision with pitcher Garrett Whitlock, who is working himself back from injury.

The Boston Red Sox appear set to make an interesting decision with pitcher Garrett Whitlock, who is working himself back from injury.

The following update comes from the Rotowire fantasy baseball portal:

Whitlock (elbow) will likely join Boston's bullpen once he comes off the 15-day injured list, Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic reports.

ANALYSIS
The expectation is that Whitlock will go on a rehab assignment next week and return as a multi-inning reliever, similar to his role for the club in 2021. Whitlock has never topped 78.1 innings in a big-league season, and may fall shy of that mark again this year as he sits on 51.2 innings. Meanwhile, Tanner Houck (face) is expected to get stretched out and return as a starting pitcher.

We don't know if the decision is being made to preserve health, control innings or if it's because Whitlock has struggled as a starter, but either way, it's an interesting move.

In 10 starts this year, he's got a 5.23 ERA and he was dominant out of the bullpen in 2021, when he had a 1.96 ERA in 73.1 innings.

It looks the Red Sox will utilize James Paxton, Chris Sale, Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford and Brayan Bello in the rotation - if everyone gets back healthy. 

The Red Sox are currently 57-52 on the year and are in fourth place in the American League East.

They've lost three of their last four games and will play the Blue Jays on Saturday afternoon at 4:10 p.m.

The Sox are 3.0 games back of the final wild card spot.

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