Buchholz On A Roll For Red Sox
BOSTON (CBS) – For Clay Buchholz, early season adjustments are starting to pay off.
Buchholz put together his third straight strong outing Tuesday night in Miami, holding the Marlins to just one run over seven innings of work in Boston's 2-1 win.
The Red Sox righty struck out a season-high nine batters, including the side in the bottom of the first after allowing a lead-off triple to Miami's first batter of the game, Jose Reyes.
"It was big," Buchholz said of stranding Reyes at third. "It's not an easy lineup to pitch to. It seems like every guy has power to hit it out of the park and they have speed too. It was a pretty tough situation; I was just trying to get out of it giving up the one run."
Buchholz Postgame Audio:
Podcast
Instead, Buchholz kept the Marlins off the scoreboard until the bottom of the seventh, when Logan Morrison led the inning off with a solo home run to cut the Sox' lead to 2-1. But after the homer, Buchholz set the Marlins down in order to finish up his evening. He has now won three straight to improve to 7-2, and after giving up just three runs over his last 24 innings has watched his ERA fall from 7.19 to enter the month of June to 5.38.
"A lot of work has gone into it,' said Buchholz. "The first couple weeks out were pretty tough. I had to find a way to battle back and get through it, knowing that I've done it before. It was going to take a little bit of time coming off the injury, but I feel like I'm on a pretty good stride right now. Just try to go out there every five days and do the best I can."
His manager has been impressed by his efforts all season, but Bobby Valentine is now happy Buchholz is being rewarded with wins.
(He's) just throwing the ball as well as we've seen him all year," Valentine said after the win. "He's really on a roll. His changeup was outstanding, curveball real good, he went to the cutter to compliment his fastball late in the game. Great job."
Buchholz has slowly started to integrate a split finger pitch into his repertoire, a pitch he just learned from Josh Beckett last month.
"It's a pitch -- when my real changeup isn't there -- it's a pitch I don't really have anything to go off of because I don't really have a bad one or a good one. It puts another pitch in the back of hitter's minds I can go to in certain counts," he said of his new weapon. "It's been a good pitch when I've thrown it, and it's still new. It's been a big pitch a couple of times this year."
With everything going right, Buchholz is brimming with confidence whenever he takes the mound now. Over the last three starts, he's struck out 22 batters in 24 innings while allowing just 15 hits.
Felger & Mazz: Mike Port On Technology Improving Baseball
It's a far cry from what Buchholz was doing early in the season, and he credits hard work –and confidence – to making all the difference.
"I was down. I think anybody would be down," he said of his early season struggles. "No one wants to be out there giving up runs and putting your team in a losing situation. That's where the work comes in. We did a lot of work on the side in between each outing. The Red Sox stuck with me, they could have given up on me a lot quicker. I do appreciate that."
