Buchholz shines in rain-shortened outing

A 15-minute rain delay after the fourth inning was the only thing that dampened Clay Buchholz’s parade Friday night at McCoy Stadium.

Buchholz resembled the pitcher whose future appears to be in Boston’s rotation as the Pawtucket Red Sox beat the Columbus Clippers, 5-2.

In five innings, Buchholz (2-1) allowed only a second-inning double by Larry Broadway. And not only did he issue zero walks and fan six but he threw 35 of 51 pitches for strikes.
One more stat: Buchholz faced only two batters over the minimum.

Even though Buchholz retired the side in order on eight pitches in the fifth, manager Ron Johnson preferred not to squeeze the envelope.

“With the delay, we’re always going to err on the side of caution with him,” said Johnson. “You’ve got rain. You’ve got a little bit of a delay. But I was really pleased to see him go back out and have a business-like inning and finish it up. And that’s all we were going to do for tonight.”

Buchholz threw the whole package at Columbus, including a fastball that topped out at 95 on the stadium radar gun.

“I thought he was getting more consistency with his arm slot in terms of getting it where he wants it,” said Johnson. “The feel for the breaking ball was very good. His fastball was downhill.

“You could tell he was getting locked in. (Without the rain delay) he would have gone seven or eight. But obviously we know what our focus is and we’re going to do what we feel is right for him and the situation.”

In six starts with Pawtucket, Buchholz has a 2.00 ERA with 12 walks and 28 strikeouts for 27 innings.

“I believe that his development is right on schedule,” said Johnson. “He had the 38 innings here last year and he’s back here so he won’t be short-changed on his opportunity to develop to the fullest. We’re able to provide that here.”

Buchholz’s performance was underscored by the fact he faced one of the International League’s better teams. The Clippers came in with a 41-31 record, one game behind Toledo for the West Division lead, and they ranked fifth with a 3.98 team ERA.

Pawtucket provided all the offense Buchholz would need in the fifth against ex-Yankee Tyler Clippard (4-5).

Chris Carter lined a three-run homer over the fight-field fence, his 15th blast of the season.

Then, with two on and two out, Dusty Brown doubled up the gap in left-center for two runs and a 5-0 lead.

After that, Zach Zinicola and Mike Bacsik blanked Pawtucket on zero hits over the last three innings.

Pawtucket received a lift from Hunter Jones who pitched the last two innings, allowed one hit and struck out three for his first save. Jones also induced Jorge Padilla to ground into a double play that ended an eighth inning after Columbus had scored twice off Jose Vaquedano.

“Hunter was outstanding,” said Johnson. “This guy’s pretty impressive for a young guy coming up here for the first time. That was a point in the game where you could feel momentum was going to wrong way and he came in and stopped it right there.”

EXTRA BASES:  Since May 7, Carter is batting .327 (51-156) with 15 home runs and 41 RBI in 40 games … Brown is batting .310 (22-71) with 18 RBI in his last 20 games … Sean Danielson was 0-3 and only has one hit in his last 17 at-bats … Jed Lowrie was 0-4 and is mired in a .111 slump (3-27) after a 14-game hitting streak.