3 Boston Red Sox prospects make MLB’s 2021 All-Rookie team

Three Red Sox prospects make MLB Pipeline’s 2021 All-Rookie team

The present and future are bright for the Boston Red Sox.

Not only are they about to play in the ALCS, defying the experts who predicted they’d finish the season in fourth place with maybe a .500 record, they also have three rookies on MLB Pipeline’s 2021 All-Rookie team.

The Yankees have none, by the way.

Each of these rookies has been crucial to the Red Sox reaching the postseason and/or stepped up big in it.

Garrett Whitlock represents the Red Sox on MLB Pipeline’s 2021 All-Rookie team

Garrett Whitlock should be a top-five AL Rookie of the Year contender, but it feels like no one outside of the AL East knows about him. We’re perfectly happy to keep it that way if it means opposing lineups keep flopping against him like fish on dry land.

The 25-year-old righty made his big-league debut in April and finished the season with a 1.96 ERA over 46 games, including 11 closes and two saves. Over 73 1/3 regular-season innings, he struck out 81 batters (9.9 SO9) and only issued 17 walks (2.1 BB9).

So far in the postseason, Whitlock has made three appearances. The first was the most poetic: his manager called upon him to pitch the ninth inning against the team that had let him go less than a year before.

Whitlock had to face the meat of the order and did allow a solo home run to Giancarlo Stanton. But it was already too late for New York; the rookie only needed eight total pitches to end the Yankees season.

In the ALDS, Whitlock pitched a total of 3 1/3 innings over two games, including closing the clincher. He not only shut out the potent Rays bats in both appearances, he no-hit them, too.

That the Red Sox poached him from their most hated rivals for a mere $100,000 makes his success even sweeter.