It's amazing what can change in a year. Last year, Clay Buchholz was throwing no-hitters and generally considered to be one of the best pitching prospects in all of baseball. This year, he's struggled mightily with the Red Sox, chalking up a 6.79 ERA with a 1.76 WHIP. After being bashed around by the Orioles last night, he's heading back down to AAA. The worst part is, he sounds awfully defeated: "That's not good, [with] your expectations, to say, 'Yeah, I think I'm going to get sent down,' after each start," Buchholz said. "But the last couple starts, it's hard to think they can give me any more opportunities than they have in this stretch, especially with only a month and a half left in the season and the pennant race as close as it is now.
"You've got to send guys out there that . . . you believe they're going to go out there and give you a win or give you six, seven innings, and I haven't been doing that. So I hate to say it was the right decision, but I believe it was."
Yikes. Clay's only 23 and he's been quite good in AAA this year, so there's no one giving up on his massive reserves of potential just yet. Still, I'm sure that the Red Sox would have much preferred that Buchholz found his stride this year and they weren't relying on Paul Byrd every fifth day to go out there and keep them at the head of the wild card race.
