Just two days after burying his younger brother, Garrett Whitlock returned to the mound.

A week that began in Kansas City with a series of life-changing phone calls and led Whitlock back home to Georgia to process an unspeakable tragedy, culminated on a long, rainy Sunday at Fenway Park. The Red Sox, on their way to another last-place finish, had little to play for. Whitlock, on the other than, had just about everything to play for.

When Alex Cora called upon Whitlock in the seventh inning against the Orioles with light rain continuing to fall, the manager knew what the outing meant to the right-hander.

Whitlock had been activated from the bereavement list earlier that day. He thought pitching would be a welcome distraction from the devastation, even if his coaches told him to take however long he needed before returning.

“Everything can get real fast in a game, but for whatever reason, that outing felt like it took about seven hours,” Whitlock said recently. “Everything felt like it was in slow motion.”

Whitlock didn’t just pitch with a heavy heart that day, he dominated. He needed just 12 pitches to get through a 1-2-3 seventh, striking out two. He threw 18 more pitches in a scoreless eighth.

“It was a good distraction but it was also very emotional,” Whitlock said. “A.C. didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. As soon as I came in, he just hugged me.”

After the game, a choked-up Whitlock said a pregame conversation with his best friend on the team, Tanner Houck, helped put things in perspective. In the Fenway clubhouse, Whitlock and Houck discussed mortality and the importance of hugging loved ones before it was too late.

That Whitlock pitched – and pitched well – led to one of the most emotional scenes of a long Red Sox season. And it’s a moment that amazes Houck and Whitlock’s other teammates about six months later.

“It’s not a long time to grieve,” Houck said. “It’s not a long time to process your emotions. I think anyone in that circumstance would throw themselves into their work or whatever means something to them … He tried to take his mind off it.

“It’s a tragedy but God has a plan for everyone. Garrett is a strong person to go through something like that and then come back.”

• • •

Whitlock’s parents separated when he was 18 months old. For years, Janet Whitlock was a young, single mother with a nagging feeling that her family was incomplete. When Garrett was 7, his mother told him she wanted to adopt.

“She didn’t know where. She didn’t know how,” Whitlock said. “She just felt like she was supposed to go to Russia.”

Janet’s first trip to Russia included a visit to an orphanage that made that calling grow even louder. A second trip brought a second son. She returned with a 3-year-old boy, named him Gavrie, and suddenly had a family of three. Gavrie only spoke Russian at the time, so Janet and Garrett taught him sign language as a bridge to English. Until Janet remarried a few years later and the Whitlocks moved to a bigger house, the two brothers, from different hemispheres, shared a bedroom in a rural Atlanta suburb.

“It was just us three for a while,” Whitlock said. “When it’s just you and him, you grow really close.”

As Garrett grew up, his interest in sports, and baseball in particular, grew. Gavrie, on the other hand, couldn’t be bothered. He never played any sports and instead, was an entrepreneur from an early age. By the time he was 12, Gavrie had started a business he called “Regal Landscaping.” He would haul a small lawnmower around the neighborhood and mow lawns to make some cash. While Garrett was rising to stardom at Providence Christian Academy and, eventually, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Gavrie developed a keen interest in engines, mechanical parts and, in the words of his older brother, “fixing stuff even if he didn’t know how to fix it.”

The brothers shared a close bond despite wildly different interests.

“Being the older brother, I’d pick on him and mess with him,” Whitlock said. “He always talked about how much he hated going to baseball games because with it just being my mom, he couldn’t really go anywhere else. So he’d get dragged to every baseball game.”

Both Whitlocks enjoyed professional success at an early age. Garrett broke into the majors at 25 and emerged as one of the most dominant relievers in baseball in 2021. Back home in Georgia, Gavrie developed a career selling and trading heavy equipment vehicles. His business, of course, was called Regal Service Company.

Gavrie never made it to Boston to see his older brother pitch at Fenway Park. However, he was always at Truist Park when the Red Sox played the Braves and traveled to spring training while visiting their grandmother in southwest Florida. Garrett watched proudly from afar as Gavrie made big career strides by age 20. Gavrie seemed to like baseball a little bit more once his cool big brother had made it big.

“It’s neat,” Whitlock said. “Once I got to pro ball, he’d always be wearing his Yankees stuff, then once I came here and got in the big leagues, he’d wear a jersey of mine that I got him.”

• • •

On Sept. 2, after pitching five innings to earn a win over the Royals at Kauffman Stadium, Houck got an unusual call from Cora.

Cora told Houck he needed to find Whitlock immediately and be there for him in any way possible.

“It still gives me chills thinking about it,” Houck said. “I remember it pretty vividly.”

Whitlock was on the team bus when he received an unusual text from an unknown number. A woman claiming to be Gavrie’s friend texted that she was about to call Whitlock. A confused Whitlock replied, hoping Gavrie was dealing with a minor inconvenience like a dead car battery.

“‘Your brother went underwater and we can’t find him,’” the woman told him. “We haven’t seen him, and no one knows where he is.’”

In shock, Whitlock tried to process what was happening 830 miles away. He knew Gavrie loved spending time at Lake Lanier, which was about 45 minutes from their hometown of Snellville, Georgia. A search was underway, but Janet Whitlock was in Michigan visiting her mother, had no idea anything was wrong. Whitlock and his wife, Jordan, who traveled for the series, knew it was time to loop Janet in.

“That was probably the hardest call for me,” Whitlock said. “I had to be the one to tell my mom that something was happening to Gav. That was pretty difficult.”

Minutes later, after a chat with the sheriff’s department that was searching for Gavrie, Whitlock’s panic began to set in.

“I was basically a wreck. I got off the bus, and I just didn’t really know what to do,” Whitlock said. “That’s when Tanner came over and sat by me the whole time. Him and my wife just sat there. Tanner didn’t even say anything. He didn’t have to. He just sat there being a friend.”

Houck and the Whitlocks took an Uber back to the team hotel. Cora, Jason Varitek and traveling secretary Mark Cacciatore called to say that the team was ready to provide anything the Whitlocks needed. At the hotel, Houck let the Whitlocks be alone in their room but pledged to be on call. His only priority was supporting his friend.

“So many emotions and so many thoughts go through your mind in a tragic time like that,” Houck said. “For anyone that has been in that instance as a friend or family member going through something like that, you’ve just got to be that rock for them and let them grieve in their own way. There’s nothing you can say. There’s nothing you can really do. It’s just about being there in person and being that rock emotionally and physically. Whatever they need, you’ve just got to be by their side.”

At about 1 a.m., the police called Whitlock again and told him they had found his brother’s body. Gavrie Whitlock was running down a dock at the marina when he slipped, fell in the lake and drowned, according to police. He was 23.

Left to process the unimaginable back in Kansas City, Whitlock didn’t know what to do next. He knew he had to get to Georgia soon but couldn’t bring himself to book a flight.

“I was like, ‘Hey, can y’all please call my mom? I don’t want to be the one to deliver that kind of thing,’ ” Whitlock said. “So she found out through them (the police). I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t want to be the one to have to go and ID his body and all that kind of stuff.”

Cora, Varitek, Houck and others remained up late into the night to support the Whitlocks at the hotel. Eventually, Cora came up with the plan. He didn’t want Whitlock to rush home Sunday morning in a panic with Janet, who was driving from Michigan to Georgia. Before Whitlock could tend to his real family, he would spend a little more time with his professional one.

“A.C. was just like, ‘Why don’t you come to the field tomorrow and let’s get more information? Just be around your family here,’ ” Whitlock said.

Whitlock spent Sunday morning in Cora’s office at Kauffman Stadium before flying home to Georgia while Janet completed the long drive home. For Whitlock’s teammates, that day’s game against the Royals was secondary. Through conversations that day and texts he received while at home planning Gavrie’s funeral, Whitlock felt constant support from the group.

“Everyone says we’re a family,” Whitlock said. “That’s when it truly showed.”

Among his teammates, Whitlock leaned on Houck, as well as fellow pitchers Chris Martin and Brennan Bernardino in the wake of the tragedy. Bernardino, who lost his own brother, was of particular help during the grieving process.

“I’m not gonna say I know what he was feeling but I’ve been through something like that. I was just there for him,” Bernardino said. “I just wanted to let him know, ‘Hey, I feel terrible and you’ve got a brother here. Maybe not blood but I’m here to have your back with whatever you need and I love you, bro.’

“Whit’s an amazing person. Death is a part of life but it never feels like it’s right. It’ll never sit right with you, especially in that situation. We were just here for Whit and whatever he needs.”

• • •

Six months after his brother’s death, it’s clear something changed in Whitlock. One of the most polite and grounded players in recent Red Sox history, Whitlock takes his job as seriously as anyone. Historically, he has a hard time hiding his unhappiness whenever he has been injured or not performing well.

“He is a very serious person all the time,” Houck said, “so you don’t get to see him smile very much.”

This spring, however, Whitlock is noticeably more chipper. As he enters his fourth season in the majors, the right-hander, who is once again vying for a spot in Boston’s rotation, has a new outlook. He spent time this offseason re-organizing his priorities and decided baseball needed to come fourth after his faith, his family and his friends. Every pitch is still important, but it’s just one pitch in the grand scheme of things.

“My perspective has changed … and it’s been because of this (tragedy),” Whitlock said. “At the end of the day, this is work and it’s a game and it’s fun. I just had this reminding moment that there’s so much more to this than just baseball. I have a chance to try and impact people’s lives. People are going through so much more serious things than if I have a bad day of pitching. Obviously, I’m gonna try to thrive and be perfect every time out there but it just really puts in perspective that I have an order of things that need to come first in my life.”

Houck and Bernardino, who have lockers near Whitlock’s at JetBlue Park in Fort Myers, Florida, have seen a change.

“I’d like to think he doesn’t take life as serious,” Houck said. “In a moment like that, you see how life is so fragile, and it could be taken away so easy. One mistake, one accident, it can be gone like that. So I like to think that maybe he doesn’t take life as serious and understands that you’ve got to love every moment and you’ve gotta cherish every moment for what it really is.”

“I would imagine it was the hardest year of his life,” Bernardino added. “When you go through adversity like that and tragedy like that, it makes you look at life a little differently. I’m sure the lens he’s looking at it through now is different than it was.”

Whitlock’s different approach doesn’t mean the pain from Gavrie’s death has worn off. Without his strong Christian faith, Whitlock says, he wouldn’t have gotten through the grieving process. The first Christmas without Gavrie was exceedingly difficult, as was his birthday on Feb. 2. Days can get lonely for Janet, who is taking things day-by-day. But Gavrie Whitlock’s memory lives on.

“He was a go-getter that lived each day to the fullest, and always wanted to – even though it sometimes got misconstrued – help other people,” Whitlock said. “Those who knew him will understand that. I’ll just put it that way.”

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