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Fan told Red Sox’ Garrett Whitlock, ‘Great year but, man, couldn’t do it when it counted’
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- Fan told Red Sox’ Garrett Whitlock, ‘Great year but, man, couldn’t do it when it counted’
FORT MYERS, Fla. — Red Sox reliever Garrett Whitlock enjoyed a dominant 2025 regular season, posting a 2.25 ERA in 72 innings. He allowed one earned run in his final 30 innings.
But Whitlock failed to get the job done in the postseason. He took the loss in Game 2 of the Red Sox ’ American League Wild Card series against the Yankees . Boston lost again the next night to drop the three-game series, 2-1.
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Whitlock’s postseason performance weighed on him until Thanksgiving time. He thought little about how well he pitched during the regular season.
“I would say any competitor would really look at just the way it ended and just be mad,” Whitlock said Friday at JetBlue Park. “I was mad that I failed.”
He wasn’t the only person who was mad.
“I heard it when I was moving out of my apartment in Boston, from the coffee shops and everything like that. Like, ‘Oh, hey, man. Great year. But, man, couldn’t do it when it counted,’” he recalled.
Asked if that actually happened, Whitlock replied, “It really happened. I’m not making that up.”
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Whitlock didn’t let it bother him though. He told the fan he was just as mad at himself for pitching poorly.
“So I spent all offseason really doing a different conditioning program than I normally do because I don’t want to be embarrassed like that again where I just ran out of steam,” Whitlock said.
Whitlock entered Game 2, in the seventh inning, with the score tied 3-3. He pitched a scoreless seventh and manager Alex Cora sent him back out for the eighth inning.
He retired the first two hitters he faced in the eighth but then walked one, allowed two singles and walked another. The Yankees took a 4-3 lead and won by that score. Whitlock said after the game that he “got tired towards the end.”
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He began to turn the page when he saw family members at Thanksgiving. They reassured him he had a great season.
“I tell the young guys, ‘If you’re anything like me and a competitor, you’re gonna already be more hard on yourself than anyone else can ever be,’” Whitlock said. “And so if you just look at it that way and just say, ‘They’re passionate, they’re loving, this is their team,’ if you go (about) it that way, you can’t get mad at them.”
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