After ripping through spring training and dominating minor league competition, Clay Buchholz wanted to get back in the big leagues. He knew he was good enough and he showed that he was good enough with those blips of success. But it wasn't that easy. There was too much starting pitching depth at the time and nobody wanted to rush him back.
He's back now and he's not going anywhere.
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Outside of two starts, Buchholz dominated August. Those two games he did give up seven runs in each of them, but the Sox actually won those games. The theory has been put out there that maybe once Buchh gets big leads his focus is lost a tad. That could be it. But if he's going to do that, might as well be in the games the Sox are going to smash the ball anyway, right?I'm convinced at this point that Buchholz has his spot in this rotation for good. The Sox have been waiting for Buchh to be ripe and just consistently pitch to his potential. As great as his no-hitter was two years ago, wouldn't we all take five solid starts versus one great one and four bad ones?
The icing was put on the cake last night when Buchholz went seven innings in the Sox's 10-0 win over the O's. Maybe he's out of that get-a-big-lead-and-blow-it funk as well, because he certainly could have given up a few runs with the Sox's offense pounding the ball. Then again, it was the Orioles last night...
In my opinion, Buchholz is just getting good now. He's hitting his stride and if this is just him warming up, he's going to be scary later in the season and at the beginning of 2010. It's time for his confidence to build up and really get comfortable. When that happens, watch out.
What do you think about Buchholz? Is this the guy we've all been waiting for, or is this just a blip? Are we going to see this guy for the rest of the season and into the future?