Clay Buchholz Continues to Dominate Blue Jays as Red Sox Win 7-2
The year hasn’t gone as planned for Clay Buchholz so far in 2012 so what’s the best medicine to cure the struggling right hander? A trip to Toronto to face the Blue Jays. Buchholz was stellar on Friday night in the Ontario capital but this is nothing new when it comes to Buchholz pitching in Canada. The 7-2 Red Sox victory was Buchholz’s sixth straight victory at the Rogers Centre over the Blue Jays, improving his career record there to 6-2 with a small 1.72 ERA.
As the Red Sox offense has done all year when Buchholz is on the mound, they delivered run support as Adrian Gonzalez and David Ortiz led the way with 2 RBI each. Gonzalez finished the night with three hits boosting his season average to .275 while Daniel Nava continues to produce, going 4-for-5 on the night which included three doubles.
The final line on Buchholz was his best of the season, going 8.0 IP while giving up 2 earned runs on 6 scattered hits. He walked 2 and fanned 7 but was once again serving up home runs as both Jays runs were courtesy of the long ball.
Scott Atchison continued his scoreless innings streak working in the ninth, allowing one hit and striking out one. His ERA on the season is now a sparkling 0.89.
The Red Sox broke open the scoring in the second inning when Ortiz hit his team leading 13th home run of the season to left center field.
Gonzalez would single in Daniel Nava later in the third inning, giving the Sox a 2-0 lead, only to have it cut in half in the bottom of the inning when Yunel Escobar took Buchholz deep to left center.
Jarrod Saltalamacchia continued to drive in runs, albeit it wasn’t the prettiest RBI. Salty grounded into a force out scoring who else, Daniel Nava. It should have been a double play but Jays pitcher Henderson Alvarez forgot to cover first allowing Salty to reach base safely.
The Red Sox would bust open the game in the seventh thanks to a Scott Podsednik RBI single, followed by a Daniel Nava double, another RBI single from Gonzo and finally a third RBI single of the inning, this time from Ortiz. 7-1 at the stretch and the Red Sox were cruising.
The bottom half of the inning was when Buchholz served up his second long ball to recent call up David Cooper, making it a 7-2 game. But that was all the scoring the Jays or Sox would muster. Another win for the Red Sox pulling them into a tie with the Blue Jays and are just three games back of the division leading Tampa Bay Rays.
Saturday afternoon’s game has Felix Doubront (5-2, 3.86 ERA) against Kyle Drabek (4-5, 4.55 ERA). Game time is 1:07 EST.