BOSTON — The Red Sox got multiple solid innings from one of their pitchers Thursday night, just maybe not who they were expecting.
After Eduardo Rodriguez struggled through another rough outing and Matt Barnes allowed one of the left-hander’s inherited runners to score, Clay Buchholz came on to pitch in the seventh inning with his team trailing by the Baltimore Orioles by five.
Sure, the stakes were low, but the starter-turned-reliever made the most of his opportunity, pitching three innings of scoreless baseball to close out the game while allowing just two hits, striking out four and walking no one.
“He pitched three clean innings,” manager John Farrell said of Buchholz after Boston’s 5-1 loss. “He executed all four of his pitches. I thought he was aggressive with his fastball. He showed as good of power on his fastball (Thursday) as he has in quite some time. So, that was an encouraging outing.”
Buchholz now has pitched five consecutive scoreless innings of relief from the bullpen. Of course, the 31-year-old veteran would rather be starting and understandably was upset when Farrell elected to go with left-hander Roenis Elias as the team’s fifth starter for Friday’s game against the Seattle Mariners.
But after Thursday’s game, Buchholz was content to take the high road.
“I hope Elias throws a no-hitter (Friday),” Buchholz said. “He’s a good pitcher, everybody knows it. He definitely deserves a shot.”
Farrell indicated Elias’ role as the No. 5 starter might be temporary, and with Rodriguez also having trouble finding his stride this season, the opportunity could be there for Buchholz to return to the rotation in the near future. The right-hander seems content on just letting things play out, however.
“I would be doing this team a disservice if I was out there thinking about what I thought should have happened or what didn’t happen,” Buchholz added.
“… It’s out of my control. I can’t worry about what and when and how they do it. That’s part of it. I’ve been around for long enough to know there’s things that happen that you don’t agree with or you didn’t expect. That’s baseball.”
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— The Red Sox’s only offense of the night came from David Ortiz, who spoiled Baltimore’s shutout bid by launching a solo homer with two outs in the ninth.
It was Ortiz’s 520th career home run and 209th homer at Fenway Park, moving him past Jim Rice for the third-most in the ballpark’s history.
“He’s got just great plate coverage in addition to the bat speed that he shows you,” Farrell said of Ortiz. “It continues to be impressive, the year that he’s putting together.”
— The defensive play of the night goes to Xander Bogaerts, who made an incredible over-the-shoulder catch on Jonathan Schoop’s blooper to shallow left field look easy.
Bogaerts had a tough weekend defensively against the Minnesota Twins but appears to have put that in his rearview mirror. The 23-year-old has the fourth-best fielding percentage among American League shortstops at .983.
— Andrew Benintendi continues to hit well in Double-A Portland. The Red Sox’s 2015 first-round draft pick went 2-for-4 on Thursday night and has recorded multiple hits in four of his last six games, going 9-for-24 with two homers over that span.
— Elias will make his first start in a Boston uniform Friday, and Farrell took a look into what has made the 27-year-old left-hander so effective lately in Triple-A Pawtucket.
“Overall, repeating his delivery much more consistently, particularly against right-handed hitters, he’s maintained a consistent arm slot,” Farrell said. “When we became familiar with him, particularly more in spring training, he’ll vary his arm slot particularly against left-handed hitters.
“He was doing somewhat of the same against right-handers, and it probably wasn’t as effective. Maintaining the one slot against right-handers has allowed him to attack both sides of the plate and both sided hitters with more consistency.”
Thumbnail photo via David Butler II/USA TODAY Sports Images
