More Than a Simple Setback

Wednesday night's loss in Baltimore, in the capper of a three-game set at Camden Yards which the Red Sox badly needed to sweep to keep pace with the resurgent Rays, was a brutal setback.

It was a setback to Boston, which needed the win to finally gain a game on the Rays, who somehow keep piling up wins while two of their key offensive cogs while away on the disabled list.


It was a setback to the bullpen, which had responded to criticism with the help of Justin Masterson's addition to shore up many of it's prior weaknesses. Whenever an infielder starts warming up in the bullpen late in a game, it's not a good sign for a pitching staff, and Alex Cora wasn't beyond the outfield walls for a lark.

But perhaps most importantly, it was a catastrophic setback to Clay Buchholz, a rising star at the season's outset who know finds himself on a shuttle back to Portland, demoted to AA to regain composure and mental acuity, little of which he's shown this year.

A year ago, Buchholz was on the precipice of call-up immortality, a fill-in starter who would toss a no-hitter in his second major league start, combining guile and beguiling stuff to completely riddle the very same Orioles club which last night clubbed him into submission in less than three innings. A couple short weeks after his no-hitter, Buchholz was converted to a reliever for the remainder of 2007, setting the stage for the young hurler to play a key role in the team's postseason run.

Yet just days after he started his second role of the year, Buchholz complained of shoulder pain in a bullpen session, was diagnosed with shoulder fatigue and was done for the year. At the time, WMYM's prior online literary embodiment said his loss could be a crushing blow to the team's playoff hopes. Obviously, that wasn't the case. Still, such was his status that his absence from a role he had only begun days before would strike such fear in Red Sox Nation.

Not anymore. This year, Buchholz has been disappointing at best and a complete, unabetted disaster at worst. Last night's setback was his seventh straight loss, dating back to May, the first time since 2002 that a Boston pitcher dropped seven straight starts. What's worse, there have been scant moments where Buchholz has even provided reason for optimism amongst those losses. Bad pitch decision because of a reluctance to overuse his curveball -- his most dynamic pitch -- and a lack of execution turned the promising rookie from a can't-miss fourth starter to a black hole.

Clearly, this move was needed. It's been needed for a long time, perhaps even dating back to the first time Buchholz was temporarily shut down for rest. It was needed for the team's prospect for the postseason and for Buchholz's prospects for the future.

It's always easy to criticize the organization's reluctance to pull the plug on Buchholz, but in truth it would have been hard for anyone to so long as he kept racking up strikeouts. The final straw came last night when he couldn't avoid walks to load the bases, then couldn't avoid pitching over the middle of the plate. The Red Sox will survive without Buchholz -- Tim Wakefield could return as early as next week, and Josh Beckett is progressing optimistically two days after it was announced he'd miss a start with numbness in his pitching hand -- but the real question isn't about the immediate future of the 2008 season. It's about the future of the organization.

That's because as much as the Red Sox will survive without Buchholz, only Buchholz knows if he can survive and re-create his dominance outside of Boston. Both sides have to hope that journey starts in Portland, and that is starts right away.

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