| 14 August 2009
Clay Buchholz finally looked like the pitcher Red Sox Nation has expected yesterday when he held the Tigers to two runs through seven innings. But Justin Verlander shut down the Red Sox offense for eight innings and Buchholz was handed the 2-0 loss.
"As good as Verlander was--and I'm probably exaggerating--I thought Clay was almost one pitch worse," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. "We just ran up against one of the better performances you'll see."
Verlander was dominant, fanning eight on the day, including an overpowering strikeout of Jason Bay that had him hitting 100 MPH on the Fenway radar gun, despite being over 120 pitches at that point.
"I'm picking the wrong pitchers to throw against," Buchholz said. "The last two guys have been as good as I've seen, so you can't read too deep into it. It's proven that it's working, but it's hard to win games when you've got guys throwing like that."
But the Sox can feel good about winning 3 of 4 during this homestand. Buchholz and Penny both looked sharper than they have all season... Jason Bay went 6 for 13 with two doubles and three ding dongs after a dismal July... and the Rangers are still behind us in the Wild Card race.
But we've got a big series with those same Rangers starting tonight in Texas. Jon Lester should be able to get us a win out of the gate, but we'll be looking for solid starts from Penny and rookie Junichi Tazawa after that if we want to stay in the the lead for the WC.
Bottom Line: The Yankees keep on winning, so we must do the same. Two wins in Texas would make for a nice gap in the WC standings... then we can work on that gap in the East with a 3-game set against the Yankees at home next week.
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