In first full season as a pro, Bowden picked up nine wins when he started 25 games for Single-A affiliates Greenville and Wilmington. A year later in 2007, he bagged 10 wins between Double-A Portland and Single-A Lancaster. In 2008, he notched nine wins in his second stint with Portland and earned himself a mid-season call up to Boston.
But when the Red Sox resume play after the All-Star break, there's a very good chance he'll be spending many summer nights in Fenway's right field pen, based on his recent move to the Pawtucket relief corps.
On Wednesday night in LeHigh Valley, Bowden made just his second career minor league relief appearance since his first professional summer in 2005. Bowden, who struck out one and allowed one hit in one inning against the IronPigs, was bumped out of rotation despite his 4-3 record (and 1.83 ERA since May 31) in what may be a crash course in relieving duties so that he can join the Sox pen for the second half of the 2010 season.
Helping out the struggling Sox bullpen wouldn't be something new for the 23-year-old hurler. Last season, he made seven relief appearances — to go with one spot start — for the big club. However, besides those late-inning appearances for Red Sox manager Terry Francona, Bowden has steered clear of bullpen duties as he's been a starter in 119 of 122 minor league outings heading into Wednesday night.
"I'm actually extremely excited," Bowden told MLBlogs.com. "I got a little bit of work at the big league level in the bullpen last year and I became pretty comfortable with it. I got a routine down and it's exciting going out there every day knowing that you have a chance to pitch. And anything that will help the Red Sox bullpen – whatever role I can play to help them – it's definitely going to be a good opportunity."
Bowden's introduction to Red Sox Nation was a successful one, as he made his MLB debut on Aug. 30, 2008 when he started against the White Sox. He captured the win by giving up just two earned runs on seven hits over five innings, but that was the only cup of coffee he would get that summer.
Then, on April 29 of last season, he was called upon once more and he made another MLB debut — this time as a reliever. Again, he found success rocking the 'B' on his head as he picked up the hold by limiting the Yankees to no hits and no runs in the seventh and eighth innings of a 4-1 win.
But like many pitchers, the Yankees wouldn't go down that easy, and tragedy struck in his next call up. Entering a Bronx slug-fest in the fifth inning four months after his successful relief appearance against the Yanks, the eventual World Series champs touched him up for seven earned runs on eight hits in just two innings of work that took 63 pitches to complete.
That River Ave. uppercut didn't seem to linger in Bowden's mind as he came back with two scoreless relief appearances before getting spanked in just three innings of a spot start in Toronto. Although he finished last year with a 9.56 ERA in 16 innings of work, he is ready to chisel away at that lofty number as soon as possible.
"Last year against the Yankees was the first time that I had ever pitched out of the bullpen," Bowden said. "It's still something new to me. I felt like I adapted fairly quickly last year when I got the opportunity to go up there and pitch in relief. It was exciting — every time the phone rang your heart skipped a beat with the adrenaline rush. I really enjoyed my time in the bullpen last year so I'm excited about this move."
