Boston Red Sox Strut: Dustin Pedroia and Clay Buchholz
The weekly article series where we examine the two players who deserve to strut their stuff for the Boston Red Sox. This week — Dustin Pedroia and Clay Buchholz.
Now to fully understand what the Red Sox Strut is, it means to have reason to walk with a confident, proud air around you. Some people mistake it for vanity, arrogance, or being pompous. This incorrect assumption is not what we mean. The Strut is about knowing that your deeds showed off your amazing skills to the baseball-loving public.
It was a strange, eventful week for the Red Sox. They clinched a playoff spot, won the AL East and celebrated the final season of David Ortiz’ career (multiple times) all while going just 1-5 in their final six games of the season.
If it was any other week, Boston would be getting killed for their efforts over the course of the last week, but the taking AL East crown buys them some leeway. Still, this is not exactly a great sign heading into the playoffs with little momentum. Sure, they’re coming off an emotional week with the division win and the Ortiz fun, but their play has been sub-par in some key spots.
POSITIONAL PLAYER: Dustin Pedroia
The Red Sox offense pretty much took the week off after the incredible 11-game winning streak came to an end on Tuesday night in New York against the Yankees. The Sox looked like they were going to come to win that game, but it wasn’t meant to be as David Price struggled to keep the Sox alive. Then, Boston went on to get swept by the Yanks and only won the middle game of a three game series against Toronto at home.
This all came with the Red Sox scoring only 17 total runs for the week. That’s a measly 2.8 runs per game and is a scary sight to see with the playoffs a few days away. They weren’t putting up huge amounts of runs during the win streak, but they had more clutch, timely hitting and seemed to be seeing the ball better at the plate.
While it could be argued that the whole team still deserves to Strut since they were the best team in the AL East, they did enough Strutting after a loss on Wednesday night (boy, that was a strange situation)…plus, that wouldn’t be any fun!
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It was a difficult week to single out any particular player with the lack of victories and scoring, but Dustin Pedroia did make his presence felt yet again. It’s fitting that when the team has off-weeks, Pedey just remains a constant force at the leadoff spot. The guy is a warrior that refuses to quit.
Pedroia went 6-for-22 on the week which is an average of .273. A couple of those hits were some impressive doubles. He also added two RBI and three runs scored. Pedroia attempted to do his part to get the offense going in New York, but he did slow down a bit over the weekend against the Blue Jays. Then again, so did the whole team.
With the playoffs starting on Thursday in Cleveland, they’ll need Pedroia to continue to set the table the way he has been ever since Mookie Betts was moved to the middle of the lineup some weeks ago. He is a key piece to this lineup finding their way and getting off to a hot start. For now, Dustin can Strut his way to Cleveland.
PITCHER: Clay Buchholz
Yup, you read that right. But after you pick up your jaw from the ground, think back about the week that was. He is really the only starter that performed and truly put in a performance that was worthy of recognition.
Price has Sox fans very nervous that his playoff issues may rise up again after he lost in his first start of the week, and looked pretty bad in doing so, and then got a no decision against his former team in the Blue Jays on the final day of the regular season. He allowed just one run against Toronto, but also only went five innings. He made into the seventh on Tuesday night in NY, but it was a struggle to get there. In the end, he gave up three homers, twelve total hits and six runs.
Short outings were the trend this week for Sox starters. Spot starter Henry Owens only went 4.2 giving up two runs, Rick Porcello went six innings giving up three runs on eight hits and Eduardo Rodriguez went five innings giving up three runs on three hits and five walks. E-Rod did strike out another nine batters. He’s been sitting down a bunch of batters by way of the K as of late.
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The Boston bullpen was adequate this week, but there really weren’t any standout performers. The only thing that’s worth noting is a negative – once again, Craig Kimbrel looks like he’s reverted back to the guy that can’t get his fastball over the plate. He was bad last week…real bad. He couldn’t get an out against the Yankees when the Sox needed a win to clinch the division on Tuesday night.
Sure, when the Jays lost it was a done deal, but the pressure was on Kimbrel to get a victory to help. Instead, he gave up a hit and walked three straight batters. He couldn’t get the job done once again on Saturday evening when the game was tied against Toronto. This is a very scary development in the final week of the season.
In the midst of all that negative, Clay Buchholz emerged from the wreckage and served up a great start on Wednesday on a night when the team really needed it at the time. Clay pitched six full shutout innings giving up just one hit and two walks. He also struck out six Yankee batters. The pressure was on Buchholz to perform and he did just that. That’s a great sign heading into the playoffs and is the reason he gets to Strut this week.
In my opinion, he has officially earned himself the right to be the starter in game three of the ALDS against the Indians. Everyone was screaming for Buchholz to get traded at the deadline (myself included), but once again the game of baseball proved that you just never know what is going to happen. Buchholz seems to have straightened himself out and has been a very useful arm that has filled a variety of roles in the second half of 2016. I can’t believe I’m saying this on the final Strut of the regular season…Clay Buchholz is Strutting into the playoffs.