Your Turn, Clay

If someone out there is enjoying Clay Buchholz's season so far, it would have to be the SABRmetrics guys (and gals). They've been saying for a while that wins don't matter. The classic example is closers; even the best are liable to end up with a losing record.

Clay's record is 4-1, still the best percentage among the starters. But his other numbers are worrisome. He's averaging 12.7 hits, 5.1 walks, and 2.3 home runs per nine innings.

Jeremy Helliclkson, Tampa's starter tonight, is averaging 7.8 hits, 3.4 walks, and 1.8 home runs per game.

You can do a fair amount of math on the strikeouts, but it looks to me like Hellickson ends up with about one more K per five innings pitched.  He has six fewer walks in total, so essentially, one guy that he strikes out, Clay walks.

The trouble is, five guys that Hellickson gets to fly out or ground out get hits off Buchholz, and at least one of them homers. Of all Clay's numbers, the 12.7 hits per nine innings figure is the historical anomaly. What gives?

This would be a good time to reverse the trend, and return to his usual form. There's no momentum in baseball, they say, but they're wrong. The Sox have some right now.

UPDATE: A friend advised me to look at WHIP (walks plus hits, divided by innings pitched). A good WHIP is about 1.2. Buchholz's career average is 1.395. His previous high, 2008, was 1.763. That was also his worst year for ERA -- 6.75. His 2012 WHIP 1.974, and his ERA is 8.31. I don't want to pile on the guy, but these figures are over seven starts, about a quarter of the season.