Clay Buchholz has had some tough-luck his last two times out having to face the other teams’ ace. Wednesday night at Rogers Centre was no different as he squared off with Toronto Blue Jays all-everything Roy Halladay.
Buchholz allowed one run over six innings of work while David Ortiz, Jason Bay and Victor Martinez homered as the Boston Red Sox went on to a 6-1 win in front of 25,925.
With the win, the Red Sox improve to 68-51 and will at the very least remain tied with the Texas Rangers for the wild card lead. At the time of this post, the Rangers were losing 5-4 in the 6th to Twins. The Jays falls to 55-63.
Buchholz continues to show improvement over each outing and on Wednesday night it was no different. He had life on his fastball and his changeup was once again nasty. He allowed the one run on 6 hits and a walk with 4 strikeouts.
The bullpen was solid behind him as Ramon Ramirez, Hideki Okajima and Takashi Saito allowed no hits over three innings. Ramirez had a walk and two strikeouts, Okajima had a strikeout and Saito struck out the side in the 9th.
Halladay wasn’t as effective on the mound as he’s been all season long. The Red Sox were able to get his pitch count up and force him out after 5 innings. He allowed 5 runs (4 earned) on 8 hits and 2 walks with 7 strikeouts.
Josh Roenicke walked one in three innings while Brandon League allowed a run on 2 hits and 2 strikeouts. He also nailed Kevin Youkilis in the ribs with a pitch.
Besides their homers, Ortiz and V-Mart both had 2 hits on the night. Bay’s homer was of the 2-run variety and Alex Gonzalez also had 2 hits and an RBI. Jacoby Ellsbury had a triple and an RBI. Nick Green and J.D. Drew were the only members of the starting nine without hits.
The Red Sox will look for the sweep on Thursday night behind the left arm of Jon Lester. He’ll be opposed by rookie Brett Cecil.
