Buchholz is No. 5 ... Despite Pet Peeves

After a dazzling no-hitter in only his second outing, there were plenty of indications that Clay Buchholz would enter his second season as a Red Sox starting pitching with an aura of control and authority. He spent the offseason building up his rotator cuff and fine-tuning new pitches. In an offseason when the Twins scrambled to pry Boston's top prospects in exchange for Johan Santana, Buchholz was the one who was truly untouchable. When his name came up, Theo Epstein and co. just told Minnesota GM Bill Smith to move on. Clay Buchholz was never, never going to pitch in the Twin Cities. At least not for Minnesota.


Well, Buchholz's steamrolling progression took a big self-inflicted step back in the offseason, when he found himself a nice little distraction, and WMYM, for one, is convinced it's been part of his spring training problem so far this year.


In case you missed it last week, word of Buchholz's lingering fling with a Penthouse Pet broke on a couple of sites. Days later, Buchholz's father confirmed it, saying that the pitcher met the current apple of his eye at, where else, a Hooter's when all the Penthouse Playmates from the past year were being paraded around for a Super Bowl week event in Arizona. Buchholz was in Arizona working out at Athlete's Performance anyway, so it's relatively understandable that he would show up. That he would pull the following number, however, is a different story. This, again, from withleather:

[Ellyson] and Buchholz met at Scott Ferrell's live remote from the Super Bowl--at Hooters, naturally. Buchholz asked to be introduced to all 15 Penthouse Pets present that day, but it was Erica Ellyson who hit it off with him right away. She flew down to Tampa a few weeks ago at his invitation to visit him during spring training.

So there you go, Boston fans. The reason why your pitching savant is scuffling is because he's a tad bit distracted by a Penthouse Playmate. And not just any Penthouse Playmate, mind you, 2007 Playmate of the Year Erica Ellyson.

Now, WMYM can't exactly blame him for being distracted, since Ellyson is a worthy distraction if ever there was one (Sienna Miller and Marisa Miller would probably beat her to the punch, but that might be it). Still, couldn't Buchholz have built up his resume BEFORE hitting the Playmate and Bunny circuit? I mean, would it have killed him to go win 15 or 20 games and come through down the stretch once or twice before lining up all the premium chicas? Instead, he's gone and jumped the shark, and that seems to have put his focus in jeopardy. And while that didn't cost him the final spot in the starting rotation - he can thank Bartolo Colon's pitiful outing against the Yankees Monday for that - it may be a big part of what has kept him from throwing a solid outing against major league competition so far this spring (his impressive starts have all come against minor league and collegiate hitters).


So, will there be more feats of Clay not Ellyson related this spring and summer? That remains to be seen. Then again, the longer Ellyson sticks around, the more Playmate footage for the rest of us.

WMYM will go ahead and speak for all of us in saying that there's nothing wrong with that.

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