Red Sox Buchholz Doesn’t Buckle, Bullpen Does Again
Do the Boston Red Sox need Jonathan Papelbon after all? The bullpen squanders Clay Buchholz‘s quality outing, almost forcing the team to act now.
Forget the well-documented hoopla over the scheduling, the missed flight, and the possibility of tired eyes. The Red Sox are supposed to perform under any conditions, and the weather was absolutely brilliant yesterday at Comerica Park in Detroit. It sure didn’t impact Buchholz’s performance, considering his mental state was thought to be fragile. With all of the failure and nervous agitation Buchholz has displayed on the mound this season, it was the rest of his team who looked rattled by the events that took place yesterday, begging the question of whether the Red Sox need to phone an old friend for help.
According to David Ortiz, the face of the Red Sox franchise, they need help badly. Scott Lauber of ESPN reported Big Papi saying, “I don’t know what happened there at the Nationals, but he was a great guy and we would welcome him back with open arms […] And we need help in the bullpen. We definitely do.” And, that wasn’t even after yesterday’s game; that was reported before the Wednesday night game against the Baltimore Orioles, after the Red Sox relievers almost coughed up the win on Tuesday night.
Boston’s bullpen didn’t get a chance to lose the game Wednesday night because starter David Price threw six innings of one-run ball until the sky opened the flood gates and dumped a ton of rain on Oriole Park in Camden Yards before the bottom of the seventh. The Red Sox rode the six-game winning streak into Michigan, hoping to continue it against the Detroit Tigers.
The man responsible for setting the tone for the game was Buchholz, filling in for Steven Wright in the starting rotation. Buchholz was demoted earlier in the season, going 2-5 with a 6.35 ERA by the end of May, and was placed in the bullpen. He was brought back in late June to start, but three straight losses threw him back into the pen.
However, as a reliever, Buchholz seemed to find more of a groove on the mound. He threw 19.2 innings, allowing no home runs and posted a .186 opposing batting average, second only to closer Craig Kimbrel.
This good deed could not go unrewarded, especially when the Red Sox are trying to make sure that they have enough starting arms to make a strong postseason run. Starting Buchholz was risky yesterday, as the last time he filled in he allowed three runs on three hits to the Arizona Diamondbacks five days earlier. Despite that start, the Red Sox knew that baby steps were required if Buchholz was going to have the confidence to ever become a starter again.
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That second step must have seemed more like a Rocky Mountain leap to Buchholz, when his own team seemed out of sorts. In the bottom of the second inning, after forcing the leadoff Tiger to ground out, Buchholz allowed a single which set the table for the debacle that his entire team performed around him, afterwards.
Casey McGehee stepped up to the plate and hit what looked clearly like a trapped ball by Jackie Bradley Jr. in center field. The ball loosely laid against his body, after diving and missing the catch. Bradley picked it up and threw it to Xander Bogaerts at second base, who then looked baffled and threw it to first base as J.D. Martinez was running back. Both Martinez and McGehee had rounded second and first before the infield umpire called the hit a catch, to the amazement of the Red Sox who then tried to force out both runners. Upon review, the right call was made that both runners were safe and, in fact, Martinez was allowed to go to third as a logical continuation of the play.
Apparently, that was confusing to the Red Sox. So much so that Boston’s manager John Farrell came out multiple times to question what was happening, instead of letting the umpires sort it out. On the last Farrell session, it looked to everyone off of the field, including the NESN commentators, that Farrell was thrown out of the game for delaying the game. Instead, it was third base coach Brian Butterfield who was ejected, after being warned to simmer down in the dugout and to refrain from the profuse chirping coming from his lips. Butterfield didn’t comply and continued his barrage at the head umpire, resulting in the ejection.
After all of this ridiculousness, Buchholz was supposed to continue pitching? Is it any wonder that the next batter, former Red Sox catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, drove in a run on a sacrifice fly to center? Red Sox fans should not have expected anything less than a total collapse, based on previous Buchholz experiences this season.
Yet, Buchholz did not buckle under the pressure. He got out of the inning and continued to pitch. He went a full six innings, giving up just the one run on six hits, no walks, and three strikeouts. It was easily Buchholz’s best start of the year.
It wasn’t until the bottom of the eighth, when Junichi Tazawa came in for relief, that Boston completely fell apart. Tazawa gave up three runs on three hits and didn’t even record one out before getting the hook. The Tigers then blanked the Red Sox in the top of the ninth for a 4-3 victory.
If it wasn’t for the bullpen, particularly Tazawa, Buchholz would have not only impressed, he would have won the game in excellent fashion. After the game, Kyle Beery of MLB.com reported Farrell saying, “He held his velocity well, he had a very good curveball, good cutter. He kept the ball on the ground and got some key strikeouts.” Buchholz said, “I felt good, I went with out of the stretch the whole start, less moving parts for me, just things I’ve been working on […] I feel like that keeps me over the rubber a little bit longer and enables me to command a little bit better.”
Who knew, between the scheduling joust in the media and the flight issues, that it would be his own team who would just hand Buchholz’s chances of winning the game over to the Tigers? No wonder Ortiz says that Papelbon, a man who tried choking the 2015 National League MVP in the dugout of his previous team, would be a welcomed addition to the bullpen.
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Ortiz added, “He started here and the fans love him […] Jonathan is like a brother to me. He’s a great guy and an amazing teammate. His teammates were always first to him. It would be fabulous to have him back.” Normally, Ortiz is very in tune with the Fenway faithful; however, judging by social media circles and other reports, the desire is a mixed bag at best. Buchholz and the other Red Sox, on the other hand, may agree that Big Papi knows best, based on this latest failure by Boston’s bullpen.