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| (AP Photo/Steven Senne) |
This may be a case where hearing that a player has
no physical issues is actually a
bad thing. Listen to
Clay Buchholz trying to explain last night's putrid performance,
"As far as stuff goes, I feel like I had the best stuff in this start, velocity-wise, that I had all year. There's absolutely nothing physically bothering me." Best stuff, velocity-wise? Being one of the 36,000 or so subjected to his performance last night, I was
routinely witnessing the Buchholz "fastball" limping in a 90 MPH (even though
Brooks Baseball says he averaged 92.8 MPH). In any event, one of
Edwin Encarnacion's
two moonshots was launched on a Little-League quality hanging breaking ball. So, what's going on with Mr.
"I was a 9-0 All-Star last year"? Maybe his manager has a clue,
"Physically there are no complaints, no issues...it looks mechanical in nature." Really? Then why don't we send him to Midas to get his front-end aligned? Seriously, how does a guy go from being a
Cy Young contender last year (before he got hurt) to the second-worst pitcher in
all of baseball (based on qualifying ERA) today?
ESPN Boston.com's Gordon Edes suggests that it
is the lingering effects of Clay's myriad injuries. Whatever it is, the Red Sox had better fix it quickly or this franchise may be one of the first ever to go from
worst to first to worst again in a three-year span.
