Clay Buchholz

Red Sox rookie pitcher Clay Buchholz just threw a no-hitter in his second major league start. Here are some interesting facts:

- Buchholz was initially a hot prospect, but his draft stock fell way down after he was busted stealing a whole bunch of laptops from a middle school. The Red Sox had a talk with him about that incident and were reassured that he was not a liability, so they took him with the 42nd pick in the 1st round - a pick they received for letting Pedro Martinez go in free agency.
- No Sox rookie has ever pitched a no-hitter.
- Though September call-ups allow teams to expand their rosters from 25 to 40 men with players from their minor league squad, Buchholz was not initially scheduled to join the rotation. For tonight's start, he was a spot replacement for an injured Tim Wakefield.
- Buchholz's major league debut was a few weeks ago during a double-header against the Angels. Because roster space was tight, manager Terry Francona jokingly remarked that Buchholz would still have to be sent back down to the minors after the game even if he threw a no-hitter.

I've been pretty disappointed with the Sox this week, so I was relieved when I turned on the game just as Big Papi had cleared the bases with a double to make it 4-0 in the bottom of the 4th inning. The Fenway crowd and the NESN announcers didn't start paying close attention to possibility of a no-hitter until the 6th inning. Louder-than-normal cheers greeted each out, and announcers Jerry Remy and Don Orsillo repeatedly made coy references to possible history in the making.

When weighing the chances of a game ending with a no-hitter, you have to ask yourself, does this guy have the stuff or is he getting lucky against a weak ball-club? Buchholz's curveball was plunging into the strike zone and completely fooling Orioles hitters who would stand there watching. They were swinging, however, at his changeup, which was 10-15 mph slower than his fastball, and Varitek was shrewdly calling for it frequently. Remy noted that it looked "unhittable" when Buchholz kept it down. By leaning on devastating offspeed pitches instead of a fastball, Buchholz was not giving the Orioles hitters a chance to get lucky, so yes, he had the stuff for a no-hitter tonight.

Every no-hitter needs at least one extraordinary defensive play to preserve it, and tonight's came courtesy of Dustin Pedroia who cut off a bouncing groundball in the 7th inning that was going to shoot up the gap into right-center field. He laid out for the ball and got it in his glove, which I fully expected from him since I've come to expect outstanding range from him. What was so impressive was how fast he burst back onto his feet to get his strength behind the throw to first base. With Youkilis stretching from the bag at first, Pedroia's throw barely beat out a head-first dive by Miguel Tejada. Television viewers could lip-read Pedroia shouting, "Fucking A!" after the play. He's a Sox player through and through.

I was giddy during the late innings of this game for the first time since last year when Papi would single-handedly lift the team to thrilling come-from-behind victories. The Red Sox definitely needed something exhilerating to wipe from memory their 4-game losing streak. The no-hitter does more than that, though. It lifts the Sox fans' spirits and keeps the media pressure off the team for the next few days, and on the flipside it shuts up the Yankees fans who have been sneering about making the AL East division a race again. Because Buchholz is a rookie, his potential for the next 5-10 years in the Sox rotation (along with Beckett, Dice-K, and Lester) looms huge with this performance in the minds of everyone in New England along with those of their rivals in NYC. Be afraid.