Clay Buchholz keeps Red Sox Nation hanging on
Clay Buchholz
is like that girl who keeps playing with our hearts.
We’ve all
had that girl (or guy) in our lives. The one who keeps us hanging on. One night
she does everything to make us think we have found the love of our life. The
next night she makes out with our best friend.
That has
been the career of the great tease that is Clayton Daniel Buchholz. He started
pulling on our heartstrings from the second we met him in 2007.
On Sept. 1
of that season Buchholz no-hit the Baltimore Orioles at Fenway Park. It was
just his second start for the Red Sox, and we dreamed of the great addition to
the rotation that already featured Curt Schilling, Josh Beckett and Daisuke
Matsuzaka on top of their game.
Just then
we thought Buchholz would be our Prom date, though, he was busy washing his
hair. He made just two more starts in 2007, and he was shut down for the season
after experience shoulder fatigue. At 23.
From
there, Buchholz has been up-and-down so much it has made our heads and our
hearts hurt. He has looked like a Cy Young winner at times and a Class A scrub
at others.
He struggled
through 2008 with a 2-9 record, was OK with a 7-4 mark in 2009 and finally
looked ready to be an ace by going 17-7 with a 2.33 ERA in 2010.
That was
followed by two mediocre seasons before going 12-1 with a 1.74 record in 2013.
Of course, he went from Cy Young frontrunner to a disabled list tease that
season.
Even
though there was talk he was going to scratch himself from a World Series
start, he did redeem himself in 2013 by going four gutsy innings in a Game 4
win in St. Louis when he was clearly hurting.
Last
season Buchholz pitched 170.1 innings, second only to his 2010 season, but he
was mediocre at best, going 8-11 with a 5.34 ERA. He went on the disabled list
even when he said he wasn’t hurt.
At times last
season he was really bad, like when he walked eight batters in Atlanta. Lately
the highs haven’t been as high and the lows are really, really low.
Buchholz was 58-33 with 3.60 ERA from 2007-13. He 9-12 (pending tonight’s loss), 5.48 since over 30 starts since.
— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) April 13, 2015
That had
the Nation’s hopes extremely high for a sweep in the Bronx with Buchholz taking
the hill for the Sunday night game on ESPN. Buchholz responded by walking
Jacoby Ellsbury to lead off the game, and he ended the night before it even
started by giving up seven runs in the first inning.
What made
it even harder to watch (aside from listening to Schilling and John Kruk) was
that Buchholz didn’t even seem to care that he was getting humiliated on
national TV.
Once again
we thought we had the girl of our dreams. Instead, we saw her walking out the
door holding hands with somebody else.