Righthanded pitcher Clay Buchholz and outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury will represent the Red Sox organization in the 2007 XM All-Star Futures Game, it was announced today by Major League Baseball.
Buchholz and Ellsbury were selected to the United States Team, which will face the World Team in a seven-inning game on Sunday, July 8 as part of the All-Star Sunday activities at AT&T Park in San Francisco. Boston joins St. Louis and Tampa Bay as the only three teams with two players selected for the U.S. squad.
Buchholz is 5-2 with a 1.82 ERA and 100 strikeouts in 74.0 innings over 13 starts for Double-A Portland. The righthander has the Eastern League’s lowest earned run average among qualifiers and tops the circuit in strikeouts. He has won his last three starts.
Ellsbury is batting .279 with seven RBI and 19 stolen bases in 41 games at Triple-A Pawtucket. The lefthanded-hitting Ellsbury opened the season at Portland and batted .452 with 13 RBI in 17 games to earn a late April promotion to the International League.
The 25-man rosters for each team were selected by Major League Baseball in conjunction with the 30 major league clubs, mlb.com, and Baseball America. This will be the ninth consecutive year the All-Star Futures Game has taken place. Current players on Boston’s major league roster who have participated include pitcher Josh Beckett (2000) and infielder Kevin Youkilis (2003).
[Press Release from the Red Sox via ProJo SoxBlog]
