Now, after weathering Saturday’s 13-5 win over the Rays, Buchholz can laugh the doubt off. The Red Sox righty wound up lasting seven innings and fanning five batters to earn his first victory of the season.
Buchholz was forced to quickly shift gears mentally early on.
"Just go pitch to pitch instead of inning to inning," Buchholz said. "Just trying to make as few pitches as possible to get them to swing and not put the ball in play, got lucky with a couple pitches that they hit right at a couple guys, just tried to keep the pace of the game going and go from there."
It strayed from his approach in the first inning, when he surrendered a three-run bomb to Rays designated hitter Luke Scott. But Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine attributed Buchholz’s sputtering start to location issues with his cutter.
Once Buchholz mastered the pitch, he mowed down the remaining batters, including 11 of 12 during one stretch.
"He got the cutter going, got the changeup going, got the curveball going. More important, he never gave up,” Valentine said. “That was an easy one — not only for Buch, for this entire team — to pack up the toolbox and go home."
Behind the backstop, Jarrod Saltalamacchia was in awe of the way Buchholz adapted and persevered through the adversity.
"It’s just determination," Saltalmacchia said. "He got better every inning. For a guy to be able to have a first few innings like he did and be able to pitch like that, it’s unbelievable. That pumped us all up to get going and get that win for him."
Have a question for Didier Morais? Send it to him via Twitter at @DidierMorais or send it here. He will pick a few questions to answer every week for his mailbag.
