FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014 It\u2019s hard to imagine Garrett Whitlock\u2019s spring getting off to a better start. The Red Sox right-hander made it three straight scoreless outings through the first week of games Saturday by sending down the Minnesota Twins 1-2-3 in the third during the club\u2019s eventual 13-8 win.<\/p>\n
Now, Whitlock will get ready\u00a0to join Team USA ahead of the World Baseball Classic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m stoked. I\u2019ve been jittery the past two days, like, \u2018Oh man it\u2019s almost here,’\u201d Whitlock said. \u201cNow I\u2019ve got to go home, do some laundry and do some packing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whitlock and teammate Roman Anthony will fly to Arizona on Sunday to join the rest of the American squad, which features Aaron Judge, Tarik Skubal, Paul Skenes and many more of the game\u2019s biggest stars. Team USA will play exhibitions against the Giants and Rockies this week before opening their tournament run in Houston against Brazil on Friday.<\/p>\n
Among those Whitlock expects to be in Houston for the tournament is his father, Larry Whitlock, a veteran who saw combat during the Vietnam War. Whitlock said getting to represent his country is an amazing honor, and that sharing the news with his father that he\u2019d been selected to the team last fall was an incredible moment for the family.<\/p>\n
\u201cI called him and I was just like, \u2018Hey I want you to hear this from me before you hear it from anyone else, as a vet, I\u2019m just so honored that I get to represent this country for baseball,\u2019 and he kind of sobbed up and everything,\u201d Whitlock said. \u201cIt was a very cool moment for me and him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m actually the only male in my family not to serve in the military,\u201d Whitlock continued. \u201cMy dad, my uncle, my brother, my granddad on both sides, so it\u2019s a really truly special thing that\u2019s close to my heart and that\u2019s why it\u2019s such an honor for me. Forget the stage and everything else, just to represent the country, obviously I\u2019ll never be able to sacrifice like so many of our service members do, but the chance that we can hopefully bring them some joy in anything, it brings tears to my eyes thinking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
To prepare for the tournament, Whitlock said he began his ramp up earlier than normal, throwing several live batting practices over the offseason when he\u2019d typically wait until camp. The work was clearly evident through the first week of games, as Whitlock allowed just one hit in three innings with no walks and two strikeouts in his three Grapefruit League outings.<\/p>\n
The next time he appears in a game the stakes will be a little bit higher, but if all goes according to plan, Whitlock won\u2019t be back with the Red Sox for a while.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was funny, (USA manager Mark DeRosa) texted us like three days ago and he\u2019s like, \u2018Hey y\u2019all better be packing for 18 days because we aren\u2019t doing anything less.\u2019 Kind of fired the guys up,\u201d Whitlock said. \u201cSo I\u2019m going to go home and you don\u2019t realize how long 18 days is until you try to pack for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gray shaky in debut<\/p>\n
Sonny Gray made his first start in a Red Sox uniform and wasn\u2019t sharp, walking the first batter he faced on four pitches before ultimately allowing two runs on three hits and two walks over 1 1\/3 innings. He threw 31 pitches, 13 for strikes, and allowed a solo home run to James Outman to lead off the second.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t like throwing as many balls as I did,\u201d Gray said. \u201cYou walk the first hitter, four pitches, you know you\u2019re not setting yourself up for success there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gray escaped a potentially problematic first inning unscathed when he drew a 6-4-3 double play turned by Trevor Story and Nick Sogard to escape a bases-loaded jam. But after giving up the solo home run in the second, he allowed a single and was lifted after drawing a groundout to end his day.<\/p>\n
Early solid again<\/p>\n
Connelly Early took the mound in the top of the fourth for what was effectively his second \u201cstart\u201d of the spring, and the rookie left-hander performed well again, throwing 2 2\/3 innings while allowing two runs on three hits with no walks and three strikeouts.<\/p>\n
Early posted a 1-2-3 fourth, allowed a single and an RBI double in the fifth and gave up a single before finishing his outing with back-to-back strikeouts in the sixth. The inherited runner later came around to score, giving Early the second earned run, but the lefty still threw 27 of his 39 pitches for strikes and topped out at 97.1 mph on the radar gun.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just trying to keep building the workload and I want to hold the velo going into all three innings,\u201d Early said. \u201cI thought I did a pretty good job with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Duran homers twice<\/p>\n
Jarren Duran has been red hot over the first week of games, and Saturday he came through again by launching two more home runs, including a two-run shot in the first inning for the second straight day.<\/p>\n
Duran went deep to right-center field, crushing a 2-2 fastball from Twins starter Taj Bradley 401 feet for the two-run shot. He followed that up with another two-run bomb off Kendry Rojas in the fourth inning, this one going 409 feet.<\/p>\n
The outfielder finished 2 for 2 with the two homers, four RBI, a walk and three runs scored. Duran is now batting .583 with a 2.167 OPS for the spring.<\/p>\n
Roman Anthony and Carlos Narvaez each went 2 for 3 with an RBI, Trevor Story went 1 for 3 with a triple and Max Ferguson hit a grand slam in the bottom of the seventh.<\/p>\n
Coming up next<\/p>\n
The Red Sox are now 5-3 in Grapefruit League and 3-0 against the Twins. Ranger Suarez will take the mound for the second time this spring on Sunday when the Red Sox host the Baltimore Orioles. Aroldis Chapman, Justin Slaten, Wyatt Olds, Tayron Guerrero and Devin Sweet are all scheduled to pitch as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014 It\u2019s hard to imagine Garrett Whitlock\u2019s spring getting off to a better start. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,5156,91434,118015,16047,2364,591,16088,31839,24614,85,205673,45198,16090,2957,35276,143382],"class_list":{"0":"post-510720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boston-red-sox","11":"tag-connelly-early","12":"tag-garrett-whitlock","13":"tag-jarren-duran","14":"tag-minnesota-twins","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-red-sox","17":"tag-roman-anthony","18":"tag-sonny-gray","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-spring-training","21":"tag-team-usa","22":"tag-twins","23":"tag-usa","24":"tag-wbc","25":"tag-world-baseball-classic"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}