That’s because on a one-out grounder from Gurriel, Arroyo unsuccessfully tried to pick it with the backhand, letting the batter reach on an error.

He wouldn’t leave unscathed, either, though it was charged to the defense. There was only one more inning in this game for the Red Sox starter, entering the third with 39 pitches and needing 22 to get out of this inning. Take a look at the entire shirt collection from our friends over at BreakingT, including the one pictured above. But again, Whitlock worked out of it, getting George Springer to pop out and stand the baserunners. On a should-be double play, the toss to Christian Arroyo, who got the start at shortstop with Xander Bogaerts getting a scheduled day off, and he couldn’t make a quick turn, allowing Bradley Zimmer to just get in safely at first and continue the inning with runners on the corners. The second went similarly with another one-out single from a righty followed by a walk, and then his defense hurt him. But he worked out of the jam, ending the inning on a nasty slider out of the zone to get Matt Chapman swining.

(each of whom is a righty) smacked hard-hit singles. You could kind of tell he was off a bit in the very first inning, as he had entered the game having allowed just one hit to a righty all year, but both Bo Bichette and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. All of that led to a solid, but short start. He wasn’t bad, working out of trouble and getting hurt some by his defense, but he was inefficient and inconsistent, while also still being kept on a short leash pitch count wise. It was kind of a weird outing for Whitlock, and not one we’re used to seeing from him. We’d have a better idea on that argument after Thursday, with the righty making his second career start in Toronto against the Blue Jays. Garrett Whitlock has been a key weapon out of the bullpen since the start of last season, but after shining in his first career start last weekend there’s an argument for him to stick there. One of the biggest stories around the Red Sox right now is what is going to happen with their rotation moving forward. Boston’s bullpen did everything they could as well, but with a punchless offense for the Sox a single unearned run for Toronto was enough for a Blue Jays win. The Blue Jays starter was awesome, while Garrett Whitlock was effective but inefficient.

But in the here and now, it hurt, as did having to face Manoah. Now, I don’t have strong feelings about this either way because on the one hand it feels counter-productive in the here and now, but on the other Alex Cora has had success with these planned off-days and sticking to them no matter what. They came back the next day facing one of the best up-and-coming pitchers in the game in Alek Manoah, and put Xander Bogaerts and J.D. The Red Sox finally got some momentum going with the bats on Wednesday, scoring seven runs in a win against the Blue Jays.

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