Red Sox Beat: Clay Buchholz Survives The Trip Aces

Say what you will about Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz, but he's heard it all before: he's too immature, he's too skinny, he's not ready for this level of play, he's not worth the hype.

Wednesday night, the 25-year-old Texan took to the hill for the seventh time this season and only had to deal with the man he was rumored to be dealt for - Toronto stud Roy Halladay - and in the middle of the AL East pennant race where every game matters.

But Buchholz continued to be unfazed by all of it and put up his third-straight solid start, going six innings and allowing just one run on six hits on 94 pitches for the win while Halladay looked like the inexperienced one (five innings, eight hits, four earned runs, 103 pitches).

He's learning on the job and despite going up against the other team's best, Buchholz continues to send a message to anyone that will listen that he has earned his spot.

In the two starts leading up to Wednesday, Buchholz had been matched up against two other aces in Detroit's Justin Verlander and New York's CC Sabathia. Here's how he fared:

- Vs. Verlander: 7.0 IP, one earned run, five hits, three K's, three walks, 100 pitches. He took the hard luck loss as Verlander didn't allow a run in eight innings of work and Detroit won 2-0.

- Vs. Sabathia: 6.0 IP, two earned runs, six hits, three K's, five walks, 105 pitches. Again, he took the loss as Sabathia allowed just two hits in 7.2 innings as again, Boston couldn't manage a single run in a 5-0 loss in the Bronx.

While there have been struggles - namely a horrendous outing against Baltimore before this stretch of quality starts - Buchholz (2-3, 3.99 ERA) has been pitching well enough to keep his spot until Tim Wakefield and/or Daisuke Matsusaka returns and deserves credit for filling a hole left by John Smoltz's abysmal run in a Red Sox uniform.

There is no coincidence this is happening since the July 31st trading deadline has passed, a deadline where his name was brought up regularly for weeks leading up. Now that he is assured he's staying with the Red Sox the rest of this season, Buchholz knows this is his time to prove he belongs and he's taking full advantage of it.

Don't let the haters fool you: Buchholz is for real and this three-start trial by fire against three of the AL's best shouldn't be overlooked. Those that say he isn't pitching well should explain what their criteria is, because from everything I'm seeing, this is exactly what you should expect from a top prospect with 25 career starts pitching for one of the highest-profile and most covered teams in sports.

You have to like thinking ahead to a rotation featuring Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Matsusaka and Buchholz in 2010, but there's a lot of baseball this season to be played and more opportunities for him to evolve into an ace of his own.

Josh Nason is the main writer for Small White Ball, a New England-based sports and media blog that has contributed to Bleacher Report since 2008. Reach him via Twitter or josh [at] smallwhiteball [dot-com].