Clay Buchholz: Terrible Pitcher

You have a ten run lead. You've cruised through six innings in front of your team's home town fans. Your offense is looking spectacular and everyone is feeling the good vibes despite the park being a brisk thirty seven degrees below zero (might be a slight exaggeration). You walk out to the mound for the seventh inning with a low pitch count. Realistically, you know you should be able to get the next three outs with minimal problems and then you can hand the game over to the bullpen.

But you're Clay Buchholz, so what you actually do is implode and try to give up that ten run lead.

It's amazing how Clay lost it so quickly. He was cruising... and then he was giving up five runs without being able to record that last out. Terrible. Clay is legitimately the only pitcher in the Sox starting rotation that has yet to record a quality start on the year. Yes, it's that bad. This isn't a case of bad luck, it's a case of sucking. In 29 innings, he's allowed 40 hits and 28 runs with 15 walks and 16 strikeouts. Ok, maybe it IS a bad start, but he's got options left and I can point him to the Pawtucket shuttle if need be.

Call me unfair. Go ahead, do it. I've never really liked Clay. He frustrates me, because he'll show a tiny glimmer of being good, and then he'll have a five-run inning where he just cannot get the last out. I never thought I'd say this for the season, but thank God for the bullpen. They made it scary, but they got the job done.

If it weren't for Papi and the rest of the offense, this could have been an ugly night. Two home runs for the Large Father. His offensive contributions for the night were a home run, a walk, another home run, and then a ground out in his last at-bat. I'll go ahead and also give credit to Calviles, Munchkin, Ronald, and Marlon Byrd, all who had multiple hit games last night. Actually, it's a little odd because the players who didn't have a multiple hit night didn't hit at all. Weird, I know.

An additional "boo, you suck" to Nick Punto for missing that popup. I guess anyone could have caught it, but no one did, and Punto got the error. It didn't end up causing any additional harm, but really Nick? Terrible. You're terrible.

Anyway, didn't get the pictures up this weekend. I won't be getting them up tonight either as I will be back at the ballpark for the second game in two nights. Maybe tomorrow... more likely, never. But it's the thought that counts, and I've thought about posting them a bunch of times.