Clay Buchholz had a spot in the rotation virtually locked up entering spring training, but he has yet to wow Boston brass and Sunday’s strained outing against the Kansas City Royals didn’t separate the righty from the pack.
Buchholz allowed three runs — two earned — on seven hits and two walks in five innings of an 8-6 win over the Royals. He struck out just one, gave up a run in each of the first three innings and allowed the leadoff man to reach in all five. It wasn’t downright awful and Buchholz likely had some rust having not pitched in nine days, but it was not the type of start that allows him to drop an anchor and claim the fifth spot for his own.
The lackluster outing came just a day after Daisuke Matsuzaka got his rehab stint underway with five scoreless innings for Triple-A Pawtucket, and two days after Tim Wakefield yielded two runs in seven sparkling frames of the series opener in Kansas City.
And it all comes on the heels of an up-and-down spring for Buchholz. The 25-year-old gave up 13 runs in 17 1/3 innings down south. Included in that stretch was a 1 2/3-inning outing against Minnesota in which he surrendered five earned runs just as he appeared to be hitting a groove.
At the very least, the man who makes the decisions appreciated Buchholz’s ability to limit the damage against the Royals.
“You talk about not walking people and making them earn it,” manager Terry Francona said. “There was a lot of situations today where they were one hit away from getting a two-out [run] but he made pitches. He bent some but he didn’t break, and there’s something to be said for that.”
Buchholz, on tap to start next Saturday in Fenway Park against the Tampa Bay Rays, said he felt physically strong. His velocity was excellent all afternoon, reaching 96 mph on multiple occasions. However, he still battled some of the inconsistencies which plagued him in March.
“The first thing I want to do is throw a first-pitch strike. And the second time through the order, they were swinging, they were hitting the ball, putting it in play,” said Buchholz, who threw 59 of his 95 pitches for strikes. “As I kept going into the game, it felt like I was throwing the pitch I needed to throw with two strikes in the first pitch of the at-bat, and not throwing quite as good of a pitch with the two-strike pitch.”
The result was almost an entire outing from the stretch, not an easy way to get things going.
Buchholz’s batterymate, Victor Martinez, said that the right-hander’s debut could be chalked up to the great support he had from his offense.
“He threw the ball good,” Martinez said. “I think we got that early lead and we were just trying to go right after the hitters [and] they were aggressive.”
That makes sense, but Buchholz is used to throwing in such situations — the Sox have scored 80 runs in his 97 innings since the start of last year.
Perhaps cognizant of that, Martinez added to his assessment.
“He hung in there for us and gave us a chance to win the game,” he said.
That’s all you can ask for from a starter. But it’s also what Wakefield did Friday and what Matsuzaka appears prepared to do in two weeks or so.
The Red Sox will have some options. They do not appear to be in any hurry to get Matsuzaka back. He is expected to make two more starts at the minor league level, but if they feel he needs more work to get regular-season ready he will get it on the farm.
If they do in fact have six healthy starting pitchers to work with, they could rotate the latter three in a pseudo six-man rotation, giving each member of the trio a rotating start off. Or they can choose to use one in the bullpen, Wakefield being the likely choice.
It is doubtful Buchholz will go anywhere when Matsuzaka returns, but there needs to be a point where he shows the club some of what he flashed in the second half last season. Sunday in Kansas City offered no guarantees.
