When Clay Buchholz left his last start after five innings, he was hoping to avoid the disabled list. After all the Red Sox already have seven people on it after Jed Lowrie and Carl Crawford were added to it on Friday and Saturday.
The Red Sox have already lost Daisuke Matsuzaka for the season and John Lackey also saw time on the DL before returning two weeks ago. Of course Alfredo Aceves and Tim Wakefield did admirable jobs with Wake continuing the success on Sunday afternoon after eight strong innings in a 12-3 win over the Milwaukee Brewers.
But the case of Buchholz is different.
Here you have a young pitcher battling through back problems. We saw it with Josh Beckett last year and we all know how his season went. But we’ve also seen how good Beckett has been this year pitching healthy.
So with that in mind and the fact it’s only June, the Red Sox decided to place Buchholz on the 15-day disabled list with a lower back strain. Taking his place on the 25-man roster and the rotation for the time being will be Andrew Miller who was called up from Triple-A Pawtucket.
Miller did have an opt-out clause in contract for June 15th but decided not to use it after talking with Red Sox GM Theo Epstein. Instead, he was promised that he was part of the future and would be called in a short time.
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The promotion of Miller is with merit too. He’s had a good year for the PawSox and probably has been their best and most consistent pitcher all season. He’s made 13 appearances (12 starts) and was 3-3 with a 2.47 ERA. He’s holding hitters to a .181 clip and has 61 strikeouts in 65.2 innings with just 35 walks and 42 hits allowed.
Now he’ll get a chance to show the Red Sox what he’s got when he takes the mound on Monday night against the San Diego Padres. You can bet that there’ll be many people rooting for him on that night including his old college teammate Daniel Bard.
For Buchholz, this is the right thing to do. There’s still a lot left in the season and the goal is for him to be healthy for the latter months of the season, hopefully including the playoffs. Backs are tricky, trust me I know first hand.
So hopefully a little rest and therapy gets will get his back back to normal because we know how good Clay can pitch when he’s healthy. Hopefully, it’ll come on July 2nd when he’s eligible to come off the DL.
And in case you were wondering who the others on the disabled list for the Red Sox are besides Buchholz, Lowrie, Crawford and Matsuzaka, they are Rich Hill, Bobby Jenks, Franklin Morales and Junichi Tazawa.
Photo credit: AP Photo
