Saving Buchholz saved money long-term

(A discussion broken out of the Josh Beckett contract post.)

As it turned out, the Red Sox didn't lose much by leaving Clay Buchholz in the minor leagues until late July. Even as well as he pitched down the stretch, it's almost inconceivable that he alone could have made up the eight-win difference between the Red Sox and the Yankees in the regular-season standings -- and thus have changed the outcome of the season in any meaningful way.

And by leaving Buchholz in the minor leagues until late July, the Red Sox probably saved themselves $3 million during the 2011 season and maybe even more beyond that.

Buchholz, of course, is subject to the same salary structure that limits the earning power of younger players in both leagues. Until a player has the equivalent of three full seasons of service time in the major leagues, his salary can be set by his team. That salary normally is close to the major-league minimum, which will be $400,000 during the 2010 season.

Once a player has three full seasons of service time, he can file for salary arbitration -- and with that enjoy increased leverage depending on what an arbitrator might be expected to award him based on his service time and his achievement to date. Arbitration salaries tend to increase over time even if players' production does not: Jeremy Hermida earned $2.25 million last season and will earn $3.345 million next season despite lackluster production, the main reason the Florida Marlins traded him to the Red Sox for next to nothing.

There's one exception to the rule: Super Twos are players who have close to -- but not quite -- three years of service time in the major leagues. To qualify, a player must have two seasons plus 86 days of service time and rank among the top 17 percent of players with between two and three seasons of service time.

One season is defined as 172 days of service time. The cutoff, according to Cot's Baseball Contracts, tends to fall somewhere around two years and 130 days, but it varies year to year.

Super Twos are eligible for arbitration as though they'd completed their third full season -- and, as you can imagine, can cost their respective teams some money. Tim Lincecum might be the best example: The Giants called him up in early May in 2007 and, of course, never sent him back. The righty finished last season with two seasons plus 148 days of service time and thus is eligible for arbitration as a Super Two.

Had the Giants waited another three weeks to call Lincecum up to the major leagues, they'd be paying him less than $1 million in 2011. Instead, though, the two-time Cy Young Award winner filed with an arbitrator for $13 million.

(This is why it's become so trendy for teams to call up their top prospects no earlier than Memorial Day -- and sometimes later. The Atlanta Braves and Baltimore Orioles did it last season with Tommy Hanson and Matt Wieters, respectively. The Washington Nationals likely will do the same this season with Stephen Strasburg.)

Here's where Buchholz becomes relevant: The 25-year-old righty finished last season with one year and 59 days of major-league service time. Even if he spends the entire 2010 season in the major leagues, it's impossible for him to finish with more than two years and 59 days of major-league service time -- well below the Super Two plateau.

Had he started last season in the major leagues, he would have lined himself up for Super Two status in the 2011 season. Another 70 days of major-league service time -- about 2 1/2 months -- would have been enough to get him within striking range of arbitration eligibility.

Instead, though, Buchholz will be paid a salary close to the major-league minimum both in 2010 and 2011 before his service-time clock starts to kick in.

Lincecum, of course, is a special case. Barring a quantum leap forward in performance, Buchholz isn't going to see that type of money. But here's a look at several more similar pitchers eligible for arbitration for the first time and what they'll earn next season -- or, at least, what they and their team will take to the arbitration table should they fail to reach a settlement:

Brian Bannister: $2.3 million
Chad Billingsley: $3.85 million
John Danks: $3.45 million
Matt Garza: $3.35 million*
Jeremy Guthrie: $2.3-3.625 million
Joe Saunders: $3.6-3.85 million
Jered Weaver: $4.265 million
*Super Two

Beckett, for the sake of comparison, agreed to a deal worth $2.4 million in his first arbitration-eligible season and $4.325 million in his second arbitration-eligible season. Before he could get to arbitration again, he signed an extension that paid him $6 million in what would have been his third arbitration-eligible season.

Had the Red Sox missed the playoffs by a game or two, games in which Buchholz could have made a difference in April and May, that $3 million or so wouldn't look like much.

Just ask the Yankees, though, what a difference $3 million can make.

Let's revisit Adrian Gonzalez in July

Four reasons why an Adrian Gonzalez trade will make more sense on July 31 than it does now:

1. San Diego's motivation
If Jed Hoyer trades Adrian Gonzalez right now, he'll be announcing to his fan base that he's given up on the 2010 season. Done. Finished. Over and out. He might bring back a nice haul of ready-for-prime-time talent -- especially if he lands Buchholz and Ellsbury -- but the only reason Padres fans have even heard of Buchholz and Ellsbury is because they're inundated with Red Sox coverage on national networks and Web sites.

(Quick: Name San Diego's top prospect, the first baseman who would replace Gonzalez if Hoyer traded him. Too tough? OK. Quick: Name a player on San Diego's roster.)

A trade of Gonzalez would tell the casual fan of the Padres to head off to the beach and not bother reporting back until 2011 or 2012. If Hoyer holds onto Gonzalez until July, though, he at least gives his fans reason to care while he kicks off the rebuilding process -- and it's unlikely the value for Gonzalez is going to decrease at all between now and July 31.

2. Jacoby Ellsbury's defense
Dreamboat certainly has all the tools -- except for an arm, but that's forgiveable -- to be an elite defensive center fielder. Advanced defensive metrics, though, suggest he had a miserable season in center field last season. FanGraphs' Ultimate Zone Rating statistic ranked him last among center fielders with a minus-18.6.

Here's the issue: Ultimate Zone Rating, especially when it comes to outfielders, is subject to random fluctuations and can't be quoted as gospel the way batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage can. Consider the evaluation of Torii Hunter in center field over the past few seasons:
* 2009: minus-2.1
* 2008: minus-13.0
* 2007: minus-6.5
* 2006: minus-11.6
* 2005: 4.5
* 2004: minus-0.2
* 2003: 13.1

Before the Red Sox conclude that Ellsbury can't play center field on a permanent basis, it might be worth using the first three months of the season to see if his numbers drift back to where his physical skill set suggests they should be.

3. Clay Buchholz's ascension
In case you missed it, the skinny righty looked like one of the best pitchers in baseball not too long after the Red Sox called him up for good. From Aug. 8 until Sept. 24, Buchholz went 6-2 (if you care about that sort of thing) with a 2.37 ERA and an opponents' OPS of under .600. He struck out 44 hitters in 64 2/3 innings and walked just 22. Against Toronto on Aug. 29, he went 8 1/3 innings and allowed just one run, striking out nine Blue Jays in the process.

"We’ve always been a champion of Clay and his potential," Theo Epstein said after the Cameron and Lackey press conferences. “He started to show it last year, and there was a six-start stretch in August and September where he was one of the best pitchers in baseball. We think that’s what he is. We think that’s what he can become. You’re not talking about a young, unproven guy anymore. We still think he’s a top-of-the-rotation guy. He’s under control for five years to this ball club. He’s got the makeup to succeed in Boston. He’s got the stuff to succeed in the American League East."

The Yankees have refused to trade Joba Chamberlain or Phil Hughes. The Rays aren't going to trade David Price. The Braves won't even talk about Tommy Hanson.

If Buchholz can show next spring that his six-week run of starts last season wasn't a fluke, the Red Sox aren't going to trade him, either. That's not the type of arm you let get away -- even for a bat like Adrian Gonzalez.

4. Ryan Kalish's progress -- and Josh Reddick's, too
Should the Red Sox trade away Ellsbury, someone will have to play left field -- and the hope here is that that someone isn't Xavier Nady.

Neither Kalish nor Reddick are ready to start the 2010 season as an everyday player with the Red Sox. Reddick has all of 62 career plate appearances in the major leagues and not much more than that at Triple-A. Kalish hasn't even yet touched Triple-A.

But Kalish and Reddick both are viewed as cornerstone-type outfielders who made it easier for Epstein to bid farewell to Jason Bay. They might not be ready by Opening Day, but both ought to be ready by the time Mike Cameron's two-year contract expires.

One or both also might be ready for a promotion in July -- and if Ellsbury is dealt away, either Kalish or Reddick could step in for him. Epstein won't know if either of the two outfielders is ready, though, until he's had a chance to see how they perform in April and May.

Casey Kelly and financial flexibility

(The second in an ongoing series.)

Let's assume John Lackey busts. Let's assume the triceps tendinitis and the elbow inflammation both recur. Let's assume Lackey turns into the next Mike Hampton, a pitcher whose salaries generally would have been more useful being flushed down the toilet all at once rather than being mailed out in two-week increments.

Had the Red Sox traded half their farm system -- let's assume it would have taken Clay Buchholz and Casey Kelly to go get Roy Halladay, not to mention a similar contract to the one signed by Lackey -- a bust like Hampton would have been a franchise-crippling disaster.

* In 2010, Buchholz and Lackey will earn a combined $18 million. According to Fangraphs -- these numbers should be taken with a huge grain of salt, but they're at least a starting point -- Lackey and Buchholz were worth $17.6 and $5.5 million, respectively, last season, and Buchholz wasn't even called up until after the All-Star break.

* In 2013, Kelly and Lackey will earn a combined $18 million. If Kelly can pitch 130 innings with an ERA of 4.00, he'll be worth significantly more than his major-league-minimum salary. Even if Lackey busts, the production of Kelly at little cost would go a long way toward making up the difference.

By signing Lackey as a free agent rather than trading prospects for Halladay, the Red Sox have covered themselves. Buchholz still is in the organization. Kelly still is in the organization. Junichi Tazawa and Michael Bowden still are in the organization. Felix Doubront, a 22-year-old who had a 3.35 ERA at Double-A Portland last season, still is in the organization. Stolmy Pimentel, a 19-year-old who had a 3.82 ERA at Single-A Greenville last season, still is in the organization.

Had the Red Sox emptied their farm system for Halladay, an ill-timed injury would have forced them back out on the market to overpay for another pitcher to take his place. By hanging onto their prospects, though, the Red Sox either can install a young pitcher in place of Lackey or swing the type of deal the Phillies made for Cliff Lee last July.

Let's even take it a step farther. Let's assume either Ryan Kalish or Josh Reddick is ready to play left field for the Red Sox by the time the 2011 season starts. Mike Cameron, of course, has agreed to a two-year contract that presumably will pay him $7.5 or $8 million in 2011.

All that means, though, is that the Red Sox will be paying Cameron, Kalish and Reddick a combined $8.5 or $9 million in 2011. How they sort out playing time -- the guess here is that a 38-year-old Cameron would be a super-sub fourth outfielder with the ability to spell J.D. Drew in right field, Jacoby Ellsbury in center field and either Kalish or Reddick in left field -- doesn't really matter. The major-league-minimum contracts of both Kalish and Reddick would allow the Red Sox to overpay a little bit to have Cameron be their backup outfielder.

Theo Epstein doesn't just build his organization on a steady flow of prospects because it's fun to see young players develop. He does so because it gives him a low-cost alternative should a hefty investment -- such as the risky five-year contract to which he's about to sign Lackey -- result in nothing but a bust.

If the worst-case scenario for Lackey becomes a reality, the Red Sox might be out $80 million. They won't, though, have to spend another $80 million to replace him.

Reported Lackey deal has Beckett implications

Both Fanhouse and FoxSports.com are reporting that Angels ace John Lackey is undergoing a physical with the Red Sox, and FoxSports.com has gone far enough to suggest that the Red Sox likely are offering an A.J. Burnett-type contract -- though Lackey might not get five years from the Red Sox the way Burnett did from the Yankees.

Should Lackey sign with the Red Sox, the deal would have implications for several players who wore the Red Sox uniform last season:

1. Jason Bay
Done. Gone. Agent Joe Urbon suggested this weekend that Bay had moved on and was fielding better offers, and signing Lackey would seem to indicate that Theo Epstein was taking Urbon at his word. It seems unlikely that the Red Sox would drop $15 million or more on Bay at the same time -- especially since the signing of Lackey takes the Red Sox even farther along the road of being a pitching-and-defense team. Bay doesn't seem to fit on a pitching-and-defense team. Mike Cameron, on the other hand, does.

2. Mike Lowell
The deal with Texas appears to have hit a snag, but the same pitching-and-defense philosophy that eliminates Bay likewise eliminates Lowell from the Red Sox's plans. A pitching-and-defense team can't have a player at third base whose range is such a question mark entering the season. If the deal with Texas falls through, the Red Sox still will have to find a way to unload Lowell and make room for Adrian Beltre.

3. Josh Beckett
4. Clay Buchholz
The signing of Lackey likewise suggests that either Beckett or Buchholz fits into the post-2010 plans of the Red Sox, but not both. A Beckett-Lester-Lackey-Buchholz-Matsuzaka rotation next season could be dominant, but Beckett is a free agent after the 2010 season and is going to be looking for Lackey-type money -- or more. Buchholz, at the same time, is a prized trade chip and could be flipped in a deal for Miguel Cabrera or Adrian Gonzalez should the Padres or Tigers fall out of contention in July or choose to hold a fire sale next winter.

The knee-jerk reaction is to believe that Buchholz now can be traded this offseason for a bat to replace Bay in the middle of the Red Sox lineup. But it's not quite that simple -- especially given the way Epstein talks about balancing the long-term and short-term of his team.

Let's assume the Red Sox trade Buchholz for a hitter and sign Beckett to a lucrative contract extension. Here's what the Red Sox rotation would look like in 2012:

1. Beckett, age 32, $15 million
2. Lester, age 29, $7.6 million
3. Lackey, age 34, $15 million
4. Daisuke Matsuzaka, $10 million
5. Casey Kelly, age 23, $0.5 million

That's $48 million for a starting rotation -- not to mention the $21 million the Red Sox would owe Cabrera or the money they'd have to pay Gonzalez to extend his contract beyond 2011.

Let's assume, then, the Red Sox let Beckett walk and install Buchholz into the starting rotation full-time. Here's what the Red Sox rotation would look like in 2012:

1. Lester, age 29, $7.6 million
2. Lackey, age 34, $15 million
3. Buchholz, age 28, $3-4 million (arbitration-eligible)
4. Matsuzaka, age 31, $10 million
5. Kelly, age 23, $0.5 million

That's $37 million or so for a starting rotation that isn't really any worse than the starting rotation above -- assuming, of course, Buchholz continues to pitch the way most expect him to pitch. All of a sudden, the Red Sox have an extra $10 million to use in the free-agent market after the 2011 season -- when, now that you mention it, Gonzalez will be free to sign with any team he wants.

(One other advantage to adding Lackey now rather than waiting for Beckett to leave and signing his replacement: The signing of Marco Scutaro meant the Red Sox already had forfeited their first-round pick and thus only forfeited a second-round pick for Lackey. If Beckett walks in 2010, the Red Sox once again can load up on draft picks a la 2005.)

Signing Lackey doesn't necessarily mean the Red Sox will trade Buchholz. Signing Lackey might just allow the Red Sox to let Beckett walk after this season -- or even to shop him on a pitching-thin trade market this winter.

Does Cliff Lee remind you of anyone?

Check out Cliff Lee's pitch chart from his Game 1 win:

Does that remind you of anyone else you know? Doesn't it look a little bit like a mirror image of this pitch chart?

(What you're looking at, since it's been a little while, is the horizontal movement of each pitch graphed against its velocity, a chart that makes it pretty easy to distinguish a four-pitch repertoire of a fastball, changeup, curveball and slider. Pitcher B has a faster fastball and a slower changeup, but the two otherwise are almost exact mirror images -- a lefty and a righty with virtually the same arsenal.)

Even the spin magnitude chart -- a chart this writer only sort of understands -- makes the two look like mirror images. Here's Lee:

And here's the other guy:

Cliff Lee had a 5.43 ERA in his first full season in the major leagues, winning 14 games as a 25-year-old but struggling mightily the whole way. A year later, at the age of 26, he won 18 games and posted a respectable 3.79 ERA -- including a stretch in which he had a 2.36 ERA across eight starts.

Three years after that, at the age of 29, he posted a 2.54 ERA and won the American League's Cy Young Award. A night ago, he struck out 10 and walked no one in a complete-game victory in Game 1 of the World Series.

That sounds like just the type of pitcher the Red Sox would love.

No wonder they've been so reluctant to trade Clay Buchholz.

(Thanks, as always, to Dan Brooks.)

Buchholz sliding into the postseason

Looking for a common thread between the final two starts made by Clay Buchholz, two starts that saw him go from perhaps the most dominant starting pitcher in the American League to a rookie caught up in the pressure of the final week of the season?

Check out the way he used his breaking pitches down the stretch:

Sept. 3 -- Changeups 23.1 pct; curveballs: 13.2; sliders: 8.8
Sept. 8 -- Curveballs: 14.2 pct; changeups 12.3; sliders 11.3
Sept. 13 -- Changeups 24.7 pct; sliders 12.4; curveballs: 10.3
Sept. 18 -- Changeups 20.0 pct; sliders 12.6; curveballs 10.5
Sept. 24 -- Changeups 22.0 pct; sliders 17.4; curveballs 15.6
Sept. 29 -- Sliders 26.6 pct; changeups 19.0; curveballs 7.6
Oct. 4 -- Sliders 27.1 pct; changeups 20.0; curveballs 7.1
(Thanks to BrooksBaseball.net for the data.)

A few things to notice:
* His tendency to throw his slider has increased and increased with every single one of his last six starts, and given that it's a pitch that's most effective when he throws it out of the strike zone, that's not necessarily a good thing.
* His two worst starts of the season were the only occasions on which he threw more sliders than changeups.
* The only offspeed pitch he's throwing less frequently now than in early September is his curveball -- the pitch that, theoretically, should be his best pitch.
* He was throwing more offspeed pitches, period, in his final few starts than he did during his run of dominance in early September. If you add up the percentages from all three of his offspeed pitches, you get this:

Sept. 3: 45.1 percent
Sept. 8: 37.7 percent
Sept. 13: 47.4 percent
Sept. 18: 43.2 percent
Sept. 24: 55 percent
Sept. 29: 53.2 percent
Oct. 4: 55.7 percent

What does that mean? He's gone from throwing his fastball between 53 and 63 percent of the time to right around 45 percent of the time.

From Terry Francona to John Farrell to the upper echelon of the Red Sox organization, they've all the same thing: The biggest stride Buchholz made from last season to this season was the command -- and the more frequent use -- of his fastball. Farrell has even said specifically that Buchholz needs to be throwing his fastball 55 or 60 percent of the time to be successful.

"He’s using his fastball more effectively, commanding it better, and he has more confidence in the pitch," assistant general manager Ben Cherington said in early September. "His secondary stuff has always been so good that he’s been able to get away with pitching without using the fastball as much, and he hasn’t been as comfortable with it. Against major-league hitters, the margin for error is smaller, and he struggled when he was not using his fastball effectively to set up his other pitches. We challenged him to do that when he went back to Pawtucket, and he’s worked at it and is more confident using that pitch."

In the last couple of weeks, though, he's gotten away from using that pitch. It worked for him against Kansas City on Sept. 24, but, well, that was against Kansas City. That start -- he threw 6 2/3 scoreless innings and didn't walk anyone -- might have been a fool's gold sort of start for him. He then gave up a home run on a first-pitch fastball to Toronto's Jose Bautista, a home run that left no doubt as it sailed over the Green Monster, and that might have spooked him, too.

But he can't get away from his fastball. It's not a plus pitch the way his changeup is, but it's still a good pitch -- and the changeup isn't any good if hitters are looking for it. If he's going to beat the Angels, he's going to have to get back to his fastball.

Bouncing back from a home-run barrage

Four pitchers this season have surrendered five home runs in a game -- the most recent being Boston's Clay Buchholz, crushed by Adam Lind and the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday night. The others:

* Brett Cecil, Blue Jays (against Boston in May)
* Josh Beckett, Red Sox (against New York in August)
* Justin Lehr, Reds (against Houston in September)

Twenty-four pitchers this season have allowed four home runs in a game, and some luminaries populate that list as well:

* Andy Pettitte, Yankees (against Tampa Bay in May)
* Dan Haren, Diamondbacks (against Oakland in May)
* Johan Santana, Mets (against Philadelphia in June)
* Joe Saunders, Angels (against Texas in June)
* Jarrod Washburn, Tigers (against Seattle in August)

If you assume that Buchholz's 0.68 ERA in his previous four starts gives him more in common with the above ground than with, say, Sergio Mitre, history can tell us something:

Beckett (5 HR)
* Bad start: 8 IP, 8 ER, 5 K, 0 BB
* Next start: 5 IP, 5 ER, 9 K, 5 BB, 2 HR

Haren (4 HR)
* Bad start: 7 IP, 5 ER, 7 K, 0 BB
* Next start: 8 IP, 2 ER, 8 K, 0 BB, 0 HR

Pettitte (4 HR)
* Bad start: 6 IP, 5 ER, 5 K, 1 BB
* Next start: 6 IP, 1 ER, 2 K, 4 BB, 0 HR

Santana (4 HR)
* Bad start: 7 IP, 5 ER, 2 K, 1 BB
* Next start: 3 IP, 9 ER, 3 K, 2 BB, 1 HR

Saunders (4 HR)
* Bad start: 3 2/3 IP, 8 ER, 2 K, 5 BB
* Next start: 5 1/3 IP, 5 ER, 2 K, 3 BB, 2 HR

Washburn (4 HR)
* Bad start: 6 IP, 6 ER, 4 K, 1 BB
* Next start: 6 IP, 3 ER, 3 K, 2 BB, 1 HR

Compare that to Buchholz (5 HR)
* Bad start: 5 IP, 7 ER, 4 K, 1 BB
* Next start: Sunday against Cleveland

We can learn a couple of things:
1. For good pitchers, giving up home runs in bunches can be a fluky thing. Not one of the above pitchers surrendered more than two home runs in their last outing.

2. Strikeouts can have something to do with it. The two pitchers who had the worst post-barrage outings also struck out the fewest hitters in the outing in which they were hit hard -- Santana and Saunders combined for four strikeouts and six walks in their bad outings, and neither bounced back well at all. Haren, on the other hand, struck out seven and didn't walk anyone in his bad outing and bounced back just fine.

Buchholz struck out four hitters in five innings on Tuesday and walked just one. He also got 10 strikeouts while throwing just 79 pitches.

If he can keep up that same strikeout-to-walk ratio next start, the home runs might just take care of themselves.

***

Added bonus: In the final start Josh Beckett made before the playoffs began in 2007, he surrendered five earned runs in six innings, including a pair of home runs.

He then tossed a complete-game shutout against the Angels in Game of 1 of the American League Division Series.

So there's that, too.

Buchholz can't put away Blue Jays

Clay Buchholz started Kevin Millar fastball-curveball-fastball with two outs in the third inning, getting quickly to a two-strike count and putting himself in position to end the inning.

He chose that point to throw his curveball -- his best pitch.

Millar was waiting for it, and he crushed it into the Green Monster seats.

"I felt like a pretty good job with the majority of the guys getting ahead in the count and getting two-strike counts," he said. "The execution of the two-strike pitches wasn't near as sharp as they needed to be to get those guys out consistently. ... If you make mistakes like that to a team that can hit, you see what happens."

It wasn't as though the Blue Jays lucked into seven runs in five innings against a pitcher who had allowed just six runs in his previous six starts. Jose Bautista hit a bomb of a home run over the Green Monster on the first pitch Buchholz threw, and Adam Lind deposited a two-strike changeup into the first row of the center-field seats later in the first inning.

Miller and Aaron Hill later joined the party, and Lind hit two more home runs -- though one of those was a Pesky Pole special off Takashi Saito -- en route to a general thrashing of Buchholz, the first time anyone had done anything against him in more than a month.

"They were sitting soft, especially late in the count," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. "They got some changeups up. ... They did a good job of picking out one speed with Buck. He was elevating a little bit, and they hit it a long way."

But it wasn't just a matter of picking a speed.

"There's other teams that have sat on it before, too, and his changeup's so good they don't hit it," Francona said. "The ball was elevated a little bit. Good hitters don't need help."

Buchholz had flummoxed his share of good hitters in his previous six starts -- including those same Blue Jays, against whom he threw 8 1/3 sensational innings exactly a month ago.

But the Blue Jays made an adjustment in this one, allowing Buchholz to get into two-strike counts and then waiting for him to come with a changeup or a curveball, his two best put-away pitches. Had those pitches looked as sharp as they have in the past month, it might not have been an issue -- but his changeup didn't have as much dive as it did in his last start:

(against Kansas City on Sept. 24)

(against Toronto on Tuesday)

Check out the yellow dots and where they registered on the scale of vertical movement. The home run Lind hit in the first inning came on a changeup that was flat and straight, and Lind Bernie Carbo'd the thing.

"I threw some changeups that were supposed to be on one side of the plate and went to the other and were up at the thighs," he said. "If you're sitting on it and you get it at the thigh, it's a hard pitch to miss."

That was particularly the case at the time when a pitcher is supposed to be at his most lethal -- with two strikes. On four of the first seven occasions in which Buchholz got two strikes on a hitter, he failed to finish him off. Three of the five home runs the Blue Jays hit off him came with two strikes.

"I just got to the kill counts, and I didn't throw the pitches where they needed to be," he said. "I don't necessarily think I threw the wrong pitches at the wrong time. Maybe the location of them weren't up to par tonight. They sat on them, and they hit them."

Buchholz has exploded as a prospect over the past couple of months thanks in large part to improved command of and confidence in his fastball. But he can't just throw fastballs -- particularly given that his secondary pitches are his best pitches.

The Blue Jays were sitting on his offspeed pitches. He could't command his offspeed pitches. What's a pitcher to do?

Buchholz didn't have an answer out on the mound -- and he didn't have an answer after the game, either.

"It's a tough question," he said. "I don't know. I've relied a lot on my offspeed a lot this year in big situation. I could have thrown 100 percent fastballs, but you can second-guess that, too. I gave up five long home runs, and the team still came back and almost took the game back. You've got to take what you're given sometimes."

Buchholz still cruising along

Clay Buchholz knows his right arm is in uncharted territory.

When he makes his second-to-last start of the season on Tuesday against the Blue Jays, he'll already have 183 innings under his belt -- far more than his previous career high. Two years ago, even as the Red Sox were making a charge to the World Series, the Red Sox cut the righty off just shy of 150 innings. A year ago, even as he was fighting through the worst season of his career, he didn't get much beyond the 150-inning plateau.

If all goes well for the Red Sox in October, though, he'll make at least five more starts -- two more this season and at least one in each round of the playoffs. He very easily could blow way past 200 innings. For an arm as young as his -- he turned 25 in August -- he's getting into dangerous waters.

Buchholz hasn't given much thought to easing up on the throttle.

"I actually feel really good physically right now," he said. "That hadn't come into my mind, to take anything off or back off."

No kidding. He has an incredible 1.32 ERA in his last six starts. In that span, only Cy Young lock Zack Greinke has better numbers:

Aug. 27-Sept. 27
Greinke, 0.26 ERA
Buchholz, 1.32
CC Sabathia, 1.50
Ted Lilly, 1.54
Felix Hernandez, 1.57

But given the rate at which pitchers get hurt, it's interesting the Red Sox haven't yet decided to ease his workload. He threw 109 pitches in 6 2/3 innings against the Royals earlier this ewek and hasn't thrown fewer than 90 pitches since the Orioles knocked him out in the fifth inning on Aug. 2.

Buchholz will get something of a breather when he, in all likelihood, pitches the Red Sox season finale against Cleveland on Oct. 4. He said he'll pitch with a short leash in that game, likely throwing 75 or 80 pitches before coming out of the game.

"I talked to John (Farrell) yesterday," Buchholz said, "and he asked me how many innings I threw in Triple-A. I think it was right around 100" -- it actually was 99 -- "and that puts me around 175 now. I feel good. It doesn't feel like a foreign area. As long as my body feels good, we can keep doing what we've been doing."

The mission won't change much, either.

"Just to stay on the same track I've been on as far as first-pitch strikes and location and command of the fastball and being able to go to offspeed pitches in counts where I'm in favor," he said. "The big key for me is just throwing the fastball on both sides of the plate and getting early outs."

Clay Buchholz and financial flexibility

What Clay Buchholz has brought with him back to Boston isn't just renewed confidence and a devastating changeup. He's brought with him the financial flexibility that will allow the Red Sox to fill gaping holes elsewhere.

The Red Sox have deep pockets, but even the Red Sox have to draw a line somewhere. We've seen the line before -- particularly with Mark Teixeira this past winter -- but we've also seen it more subtly: When the Red Sox acquired Billy Wagner, for example, Theo Epstein cited the budgeted performance bonuses for Brad Penny and John Smoltz as the reason he could afford to assume the contract of Billy Wagner.

Buchholz, who will finish this season with a little more than two full years of service time in the major leagues, will earn somewhere around $500,000 next season. He'll be arbitration-eligible for the first time a season after that. Combined with Jon Lester, whose contract doesn't break $10 million until 2013, Buchholz will give the Red Sox unprecedented payroll flexibility within their starting rotation and beyond.

Here's how the projected Red Sox rotation breaks down next season:
1. Josh Beckett, $12 million
2. Jon Lester, $3.75 million
3. Clay Buchholz, ~$500,000
4. Daisuke Matsuzaka, $8 million
5. Tim Wakefield, $4 million
Total: Just shy of $26 million

Compare that to the Yankees' projected rotation:
1. CC Sabathia, $23 million
2. A.J. Burnett, $16.5 million
3. Joba Chamberlain, ~$500,000
4-5. Fill in the blank
Total (1-3): $40 million-plus

But it's not really about the Yankees. It's about the Red Sox, and it's about Theo Epstein's ability to spend money in the areas his team needs help. The key comparison, really, is with the way the Red Sox spent money on pitchers in the past -- and we'll look at recent two seasons chosen completely and totally at random:

2007
1. Beckett, $6 million
2. Curt Schilling, $13 million
3. Daisuke Matsuzaka, $8 million
4. Wakefield, $4 million
5. Julian Tavarez, $3.35 million
Total: $34.35 million

2004
1. Pedro Martinez, $17.5 million
2. Schilling, $12 million
3. Derek Lowe, $5 million
4. Wakefield, $4.35 million
5. Bronson Arroyo, $332,500
Total: $39.1825 million

(Numbers all lifted from Cot's Baseball Contracts.)

Pitching, of course, is everything.

But when you don't have to spend money on pitching -- particularly in a free-agent market as weak as the upcoming free-agent market will be -- you're a step ahead of the game.

Think of it this way: If Buchholz was pitching more like a No. 4 starter than like a No. 2, the Red Sox would have to think about signing Jon Garland, John Lackey or Jarrod Washburn to a big-money contract to fit in behind Beckett and Lester. Lackey in particular is going to be looking for A.J. Burnett-type money -- and rightfully so, given that he's a better pitcher than Burnett -- and he's going to get it from someone.

Thanks to Buchholz, though, it won't be from the Red Sox.

For a team with fairly deep pockets, saving money on pitching isn't usually a yellow-brick road to the playoffs. We've all seen the Red Sox burned before when they've gone bargain shopping for starting pitchers.

But with a starting rotation already filled up with quality major-league pitchers at less than $30 million for the entire package, the Red Sox can afford to spend elsewhere. That's going to be essential for a team that's going to need to spend elsewhere.

Consider the financial considerations for next season:
(Italics denote estimate.)

1. Left field: $7.5 million in 2009. $15 million for 2010.
Jason Bay is a free agent, and the Red Sox will either have to pony up for Bay or Matt Holliday or replace that production at another position. Bay cost the Red Sox just $7.5 million a year this season, but they'll have to pay double that either to him or to his replacement.

2. Shortstop. $1 million in 2009. $6 million in 2010.
The team holds a $6 million option on Alex Gonzalez, a reasonable price to pay for Jed Lowrie insurance. The idea of Jose Reyes remains on the table, and if you don't think Epstein will have that conversation with Omar Minaya a couple of times, you're crazy.

3. Catcher. $6 million in 2009. $11 million in 2010.
The $7.5 million option the Red Sox hold on Victor Martinez might be the biggest no-brainer of all time, but that's more money than they spent on Jason Varitek and George Kottaras combined this season. Oh, and they'll still owe $3 million to Varitek whether they save a roster spot for him or not.

4. Third base. $12 million in 2009. $12 million in 2010.
Mike Lowell is looking a little more spry these days, but it's still a gamble to count on a 36-year-old with limited range to play third base every day. Chone Figgins and Marco Scutaro both are options, and while Scutaro might come relatively cheap, Figgins won't.

5. Designated hitter. $12.5 million in 2009. $12.5 million in 2010.
David Ortiz came alive in June but has seen his slugging percentage drop every month since -- even with his pinch-hit double on Sunday, he's still slugging just .400 -- and the Red Sox might not want to risk their designated hitter looking as lifeless next season as Ortiz did in April and May.

6. Other monies owed.
The Red Sox still will have to pay Julio Lugo $9 million next season no matter what uniform he wears. Should they jettison Lowell or Ortiz, they'll have to eat quite a bit of that money, too, and that starts to add up.

Without Buchholz looking like Zack Greinke in the middle of the Red Sox rotation, Epstein would have to shell out quite a bit of money for a workhorse like Lackey -- or he'd have to unload a half-dozen prized prospects for a young phenom like Felix Hernandez.

Instead, though, Epstein can spend that money on a slugger to play left field or for a super-utility infielder like Figgins or Scutaro to play third base and shortstop -- or he can use it to pay another big bopper while turning Ortiz into a $12 million-a-year pinch-hitter off the bench.

The Red Sox have shifted their focus to their farm system because financial flexibility is everything in baseball. When you only have to pay your No. 2 and No. 3 starters a combined $4 million, it gives you the opportunity to do just about anything else you want.

Buchholz, Lester baffle Rays

If you want to see scoring, watch Adrian Peterson run.

If you want to see pitching, watch the Red Sox in the playoffs.

Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz look at Josh Beckett as a role model. Lester and Buchholz look at each other like buddies. The two often can be found on perched on the clubhouse couches, a laptop on the table and guitars in their respective laps, working out chords together for whatever song happens to be on the screen.

A day after Beckett tossed a rain-shortened pseudo-complete game, his best outing in a month, both Buchholz and Lester one-upped the hard-throwing righty. Buchholz threw seven sterling innings, allowing only one run on an infield chopper, and Lester threw eight even better innings, a broken-bat single to left the only hit he allowed until after he'd thrown 90 pitches.

"I didn't show up today saying I was going to pitch better than Josh or pitch better than Clay," Lester said. "I don't work that way. ... As far as competitive nature, no, I'm not trying to come in here and outdo those guys. They threw the ball really, really well. I'm just trying to pitch my game and execute pitches."

When a reporter asked Red Sox manager Terry Francona about the back end of his starting rotation, he lumped his top three pitchers together in that top tier -- perhaps for the first time.

"Buchholz, Beckett and Lester, if they’re pitching the way they’re supposed to, you start filling in those other spots, it’s a little bit easier," Francona said. "If those guys stumble, that’s when it looks a little bit harder."

Beckett, unless his bounce-back start becomes more aberrational than indicative of progress, remains the staff ace. Lester and Buchholz, however, might be the best No. 2 and No. 3 starters in major-league baseball. Lester had already surpassed Beckett in terms of ERA (3.29 to 3.82), and Buchholz (3.66) did so with his sensational effort on Sunday.

Here's a closer look at how Buchholz and Lester combined to surrender just one run and seven hits in 15 innings against the Rays on Sunday:

Clay Buchholz
That changeup. Oh, that changeup.

Buchholz came up with a plus curveball. He's developed a plus slider. He's spent the entire season refining his fastball.

The Rays, however, couldn't touch his changeup.

The 25-year-old righty threw mixed 24 changeups into his repertoire on Sunday. The Rays swung and missed at nine of them -- an absurd number.

All in all, Buchholz induced a season-best 15 swings and misses -- one with his slider, two with his curveball, three with his fastball and nine with that beautiful changeup.

To put that in perspective, Beckett hasn't gotten 15 swings and misses in any of his starts this season. Cy Young front-runner Zack Greinke has induced 15 swings and misses in just three of his 29 starts.

If not for one fluky ground ball up the middle, Buchholz would have escaped seven innings without allowing a single earned run.

"It's unfortunate that a bleeder up the middle gets him," Lester said. "It's unlucky. If the ball's hit a little bit harder, it's an out. But he threw the ball really well. You could tell early on he was really feeling it with his changeup, and he carried that confidence over."

It's easy to see why the changeup was effective. The chart:

The horizontal axis is speed. The vertical axis is up-and-down movement. When Buchholz throws his changeup, it looks exactly the same as his fastball but comes in 10 or 12 miles an hour slower.

Compare that to his final halfway decent start a year ago:

(The colors are different, but you can see how his changeup and his slider run together and how neither are along the same vertical axis as his fastball.)

If a hitter can't see the ball start to break, he's going to read fastball -- and he's going to be way out in front with his swing. That's what Buchholz did to the Rays on Sunday.

It's even more difficult to see the difference during the sunshine of the afternoon under which the skinny Texan was pitching.

"When you change speeds on a day like today when it's bright and it's not bright and it's bright, that makes it even tougher," Francona said. "I even asked (umpire) Randy Marsh when I made a change, I said, 'Can you see?' He said, 'Some of it.' You see part of the ball. Anybody that's changing speeds, it's making it that much more difficult."

Said Buchholz, "It's a pitch I feel I can throw on hitters' counts. It's just a ptich you can throw with the same arm speed as your fastball just to get them off just that little tick and maybe get a mis-hit ball or pop up somebody. It's been a good pitch for me."

Buchholz now has a 1.59 ERA in his last four starts, all wins, and opponents are hitting .170 against him in that span. Through out one lousy start against the White Sox, and Buchholz has a 1.71 ERA since Aug. 8.

It's tough for Francona not to get ahead of himself.

"When he pitches well, it’s hard not to think of the future," the manager said. "I know we’re caught in the present, but he’s a young pitcher that’s trying to establish himself as a winner. When he does that, he certainly makes the future a lot brighter. You can’t find pitching, ... and you’ve got a guy right in your own backyard."

It's hard for us not to get ahead of ourselves, too.

The last time a Red Sox pitcher showed off a changeup like that, though, fans waved Dominican flags in the bleachers and chanted "Ped-ro! Ped-ro!" every five days.

Jon Lester
Not only has Lester surpassed Beckett in several statistical categories this season, he might just have surpassed Beckett as the best power arm in the Red Sox rotation. The lefty touched 97.7 miles per hour on an admittedly generous Fenway Park gun and averaged better than 94 miles in his eight innings.

It was a particularly impressive effort given the false start he'd endured on Friday. He had to rush his warm-up pitches and threw 23 pitches in a driving rain before umpires called a halt to the proceedings.

He then came back two days later and threw 105 pitches across eight shutout innings.

"I was kind of surprised at the way my body responded," he said. "It was almost like an extended bullpen. I'm guessing, but I'm right around 40 pitches in the bullpen and 20 pitches out there. A 60-pitch side has been done by me many times. I've been out there grinding away.

"I figured I'd be a little more sore (on Saturday) than I was, but it turned out to work pretty well."

The lefty didn't command particularly well in the rain on Friday: He allowed three hits and a fly ball to center field, and all four came on either fastballs or cutters that he'd left in the middle of the strike zone:

It was a far different story on Sunday. He left one pitch in the middle of the strike zone -- a first-pitch fastball right down the middle to Jason Bartlett that inexplicably was called a ball -- but the pitches the Rays put in play all were on the edges of the zone:

From there, it was a matter of doing what he's done all season. Lester fanned the side in the third inning on a fastball, a curveball and a fastball. He then walked the dangerous Evan Longoria in the fourth ining but followed that by striking out Ben Zobrist (swinging at a curveball) and Erick Aybar (swinging at a cutter).

Francona could have lifted him for a reliever after he allowed a leadoff single to Dioner Navarro in the top of the eighth. But with Navarro on third base and pinch-hitter Pat Burrell at the plate, Lester struck him out with three straight elevated fastballs and a nasty curveball down and in:

It's easy to compare Buchholz now to Lester a year ago. But even if you take Lester's cancer out of the equation, they're two different pitchers -- and they've traveled two different career arcs.

"Clay came up right away and throws a no-hitter," Lester said. "After his second start, he's already got expectations. It took me a while to build those expecations.

"That's got to be tough. You come up here and throw a no-hitter, and it's like, 'Oh, this is easy.' It's not, and he learned that kind of the hard way -- but I think it's going to make him a better pitcher. As you've seen, I think he's grown up quite a bit, and he's done unbelievably well."

So, too, has Lester.

While Buchholz can make a pretty good argument to be considered the No. 3 starter in the Red Sox rotation, Lester can make a pretty good argument to be considered the best lefthanded pitcher in the major leagues.

Focus on the hitter has Buchholz rolling

Clay Buchholz lost his perfect game with one out in the fourth inning on Tuesday, walking Felix Pie on a fastball in the dirt. He then came within a whisker of losing his no-hitter as Nolan Reimold hit a ground ball between third base and shortstop that a sprawling Kevin Youkilis turned into a force play at second base.

The Red Sox already led by an 8-0 score on the strength of home runs from Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis, Alex Gonzalez and Dustin Pedroia again. The game, the epic collapse two months ago notwithstanding, was well in hand.

Buchholz missed with his first pitch to slugging right fielder Nick Markakis, a curveball in the dirt. He then threw over to first base to keep Pie close.

Even before Casey Kotchman could throw the ball back to Buchholz, catcher Victor Martinez already was sprinting out to the mound, his mask in his hand. The message?

"'Don't throw over,'" Buchholz said with a chuckle. "He just said, 'Hey, it's 8-0. Come on. Focus on the hitter.' I knew exactly what was going to happen right when I let the ball go to first base. I knew he was running out. He's told me that a couple of times, to try to focus on the hitter. Pitching is hard enough as it is, to just face a batter, let alone to have 50 percent of your attention on the runner and then the other 50 on the hitter. He wants me to stay 100 percent on the hitter."

Buchholz still gave up a hard-hit single to center field to Markakis, one of the best young hitters in the American League. But with runners on first and third and two out, Buchholz threw five straight fastballs to Melvin Mora and eventually broke his bat on a groundout to third base.

The 25-year-old righty then retired nine of the final 11 hitters he faced, leaving after seven innings having allowed just three hits and no runs. In his last two outings at Fenway Park, he's allowed six hits and just one earned run in 15 1/3 innings.

He mixed all four of his pitches with spectacular effectiveness: He fanned two with his changeup, two with his slider and one with his curveball, and he threw his fastball for more strikes than any of the other three pitches.

"They had to respect every pitch that he could throw for strikes," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. "He was able to pound his fastball in and expand the plate away with his curveball, slider, changeup. That's a nice mix. When he pitches like that, I'm not trying to get ahead of myself, but it's amazing how good the organization feels about the future. You look at him out there putting up zeros, and the way he can do it, it's very exciting."

It helped, of course, that the Red Sox scored more in the first three innings than the Patriots scored in their second preseason game.

"He probably looked like a combination of Don Drysdale, Warren Spahn and Sandy Koufax when he got an 8-0 lead," Orioles manager Dave Trembley said.

But Buchholz knows as well as anyone how quickly a lead can disappear. It was against these same Orioles a month ago that Buchholz gave back an early seven-run lead in a game the Red Sox eventually won by an 18-10 score.

"I try to keep that out of my mind as much as possible," he said. "I try to stay as if the game was still tied and pitch the same way I would if it was a 0-0 game or a 1-1 game. I think that kept my pitches a little more crisp than they were last time against these guys."

The biggest difference? You guessed it: His curveball.

A month ago, Buchholz had next to no feel for his best pitch and instead was throwing his changeup almost exclusively when he wanted to throw an offspeed pitch. In that rough start against the Orioles on Aug. 2, Buchholz threw five curveballs and four wishy-washy sliders, his breaking pitches all but blending together in terms of movement and speed:

Against the Orioles on Tuesday, though, Buchholz threw all four of his pitches -- including the same type of knee-buckling curveball he's started to unleash in the last couple of weeks:

"The last three starts, it's been a pitch I can throw for a strike," he said. "When I want to throw it in the dirt, I can. It's the pitch it was in 2007 for me. I feel really comfortable throwing it in any count and throwing it for a strike. It's just another pitch they have to guess on or sit on, and it's helping out my repertoire."

Most importantly, though, Buchholz is pitching with confidence. He's pounding the strike zone, and he's not throwing over to first base every time a runner reaches.

Take out an aberrational start against the White Sox on Aug. 24, and Buchholz has a 1.79 ERA since his Aug. 2 start in Baltimore. Even if you include that tough outing against the White Sox, opponents are hitting .212 off Buchholz in that span.

All of a sudden, he's the No. 3 starter the Red Sox always hoped he'd be.

Buchholz's slider has become a plus pitch

Ask anyone associated with the Red Sox, and they'll tell you the key for Clay Buchholz has been the command of his fastball.

"This kid was told what he needed to do, what he needed to work on in (the) Arizona (Fall League) and what he needed to do in offseason: He need to command the fastball," said Rich Sauveur, the pitching coach at Triple-A Pawtucket. "That's what he did. He came down to Fort Myers and established his fastball early on and then would go to his secondary pitches."

"He’s using his fastball more effectively, commanding it better, and he has more confidence in the pitch," said Ben Cherington, Red Sox senior vice president and assistant general manager. "His secondary stuff has always been so good that he’s been able to get away with pitching without using the fastball as much, and he hasn’t been as comfortable with it. Against major-league hitters, the margin for error is smaller, and he struggled when he was not using his fastball effectively to set up his other pitches."

But along with that fastball has come improved velocity and command of his slider, and that means Buchholz is throwing four pitches that are or are on the verge of becoming real weapons against major-league hitters.

The last of those plus pitches to come along? His slider.

Against Toronto on Saturday, Buchholz threw seven sliders. Four were down and out of the strike zone but not chased. Two were swung at and missed.

For the sake of comparision, Buchholz threw 19 curveballs and got just one swing and miss, and he threw 52 fastballs and got just one swing and miss.

(The point of throwing his fastball, to fair, is not to get swings and misses. The point is to get weak contact and to set up his secondary pitches so hitters can't sit on anything offspeed.)

His best swing-and-miss pitch was his changeup (a remarkable 12 swinging strikes out of 25 pitches), but his second-best swing-and-miss pitch was his slider.

Buchholz has never thrown his slider with this type of effectiveness. This isn't a contrast between the major leagues and the minor leagues, either: This is a young pitcher mastering a fourth pitch that might just make him a star.

Here's Buchholz against the Royals in early August last season:

There's virtually no difference between his curveball and his slider. The purple dots and the orange dots run together -- it's as slurvy as it gets.

"I would call (the slider) more of a hard curveball last year that came from a different arm angle," Sauveur said. "This year, he went with all of his pitches to the same arm slot, and it became a true slider that he's throwing now. ... His curveball is a hard curveball, a 12-to-6, and to make it a slider, all he was doing was dropping his arm."

Here's Buchholz against the Blue Jays on Saturday:

He's certainly throwing his fastball with better command as evidenced by the tight grouping of the green dots in the top left corner. But his secondary pitches no longer all blend together: His slider comes in at 85 miles an hour with a certain type of movement, and his curveball comes in at 78 miles an hour with a different type of movement.

It makes it very difficult for a hitter to go up guessing -- and it makes it even more difficult for a hitter to find patterns the way hitters seemed to find patterns against Josh Beckett earlier this month.

The last time Buchholz pitched at Tropicana Field, he turned in easily the best outing of his otherwise miserable 2008 season. He absorbed the loss but through no fault of his own: He shut the Rays out through the first seven innings but allowed a two-run home run to Akinori Iwamura with two outs in the bottom of the eighth.

He walked two in the first inning but got out of the jam by striking out Evan Longoria, and he retired 19 of the next 20 hitters he faced.

Another outing like that -- or like his sensational effort against the Blue Jays on Saturday -- would all but solidify his standing as the No. 3 starter in the Red Sox rotation for the indefinite future.

Clay's command getting better and better

If you're starting to think that Clay Buchholz looked as good on Saturday as he's looked all season, well, you're right.

Just look at his curveball.

Yes, we've spent so much time examining that particular pitch in this space that we really could start to call this the "Clay If By Curveball" blog. But that doesn't have the same ring to it -- and, besides, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow would not approve.

Besides, if Buchholz is going to finish this season and go into next season as the No. 3 starter in the Red Sox rotation, he's going to need his best pitch to start working for him. He's a pretty good pitcher with a fastball and a changeup and a slider. He's a tremendous pitcher with a fastball and changeup and a slider and a world-class curveball.

The three charts below all measure horizontal movement and vertical movement, all have nothing to do with speed and everything to do with command and location. A pitcher needs to know exactly how much his pitches are going to break if he's going to hit his target, and the more consistent he can be with that break, the better the results.

A pitcher with four pitches needs to have four distinct groupings of data points on the chart. He's going to have the most success when the ball comes out of his hand the same way but goes all sorts of directions after that. It's OK if the changeup moves the same way the fastball does -- the difference in speed is the weapon there -- but if the curveball is too flat or too straight, well, it's going to get hit.

None of that matters, though, if he can't command it. If he can't throw the pitch consistently -- and throw it for strikes -- batters won't even have to swing.

Here's Buchholz against Toronto on Aug. 19:


Check out the pink dots in the charts above. Buchholz shied away from throwing his curveball at the Rogers Centre 10 days ago because he didn't have a good feel for it. That shows up on the chart in the way the pink dots are spread out along the bottom of the chart. One of his curveballs moved just one inch horizontally, and a couple of them moved five inches. Considering that the plate is just 17 inches wide, that's a pretty significant difference.

To make matters worse, his slider and his changeup ran together, looking far too similar to make either pitch all that effective.

He ended up pitching six solid innings, but he was going to get burned if his stuff kept looking like that. That's what happened last Monday against the White Sox:


His fastball, changeup and slider all formed tight groups, but his curveball still wasn't there. You could tell he was making the pitch an emphasis -- he threw more than twice as many curves as he had in Toronto -- but it wasn't there. His vertical break varied from eight inches to 12 inches, and his horizontal break varied from two inches to nine inches. There's no way he could expect to hit a target with command like that.

His other three pitches, though, differentiated themselves from each other far better than they had in his previous outing -- a curious development considering that the results were far worse. He seemed to have found his fastballs and his changeup and his slider, and he just still needed to find a feel for his curveball.

That brings us to Saturday's gem against the Blue Jays:


Not only was his curveball dramatically set apart from his slider and his changeup, but the data points finally were clustered all together. Every time he threw his curveball, he threw it with between four and six inches of horizontal break. When he aimed for the inside corner, he hit the inside corner. When he aimed for the outside corner, he hit the outside corner.

(The only pitch that's offset a little bit is the curveball that slipped and almost hit Jose Bautista in the ninth inning. That's only fair, though, given that Buchholz completely embarassed Bautista in the first inning with his nastiest curve of the game.)

He recorded most of his strikeouts via the changeup, but that's in large part because he threw his changeup later in the count than his curveball. (Warning: That link takes you to yet another chart.) He started hitters with his fastball, baffled them with his curveball and finished them off with his changeup.

It was by far the best he's thrown his Uncle Charlie since his return to the major leagues about six weeks ago.

Not coincidentally, it was by far his best start, too.

Pitching rotation: From Point A to Point B

Tim Wakefield will start Wednesday for the Red Sox in place of Brad Penny, the veteran who might have seen his Red Sox career come to an inglorious end in similar fashion to John Smoltz two weeks ago.

Smoltz was rocked by the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, and Penny was rocked by the Yankees at Fenway Park to the tune of eight runs in four innings. Red Sox manager Terry Francona didn't come with the "At least he was throwing strikes" optimism he's brought to previous post-Penny press conferences, and he told reporters this afternoon that Penny had lost his spot in the Red Sox rotation.

"I told him he's got to kind of hang tight a little bit and get through today, and then we'll go from there," Francona said.

Odds are long that Penny will make another start for the Red Sox this season. It would be easy enough to "skip" Penny in the rotation this week, optioning Enrique Gonzalez to Triple-A Pawtucket to make room for Wakefield and filling out the bullpen with extra arms when rosters expand five days later.

The return of Wakefield and the marginalization of Penny means just more upheaval in a Red Sox pitching staff many believed to be the deepest in baseball coming out of spring training. Francona and Theo Epstein developed contingency plan after contingency plan -- and they've had to put almost all of them to use.

It's amazing, really, how the Red Sox depth chart, to borrow a phrase from football, has evolved from its Opening Day incarnation to the way it looks right now:

Late March
1. Josh Beckett
2. Jon Lester
3. Daisuke Matsuzaka
4. Tim Wakefield
5. Brad Penny
6. Justin Masterson (in the bullpen)
7. John Smoltz (rehabbing)
8. Clay Buchholz (in the minors)
9. Michael Bowden (in the minors)
10. Junichi Tazawa (in the minors)

Late August
1. Beckett (3.38 ERA)
2. Lester (3.58 ERA)
Not much has changed at the top of the rotation. Beckett and Lester each have double-digit wins and a couple of complete games to go along with a strikeout-to-walk ratio right around 3.5. Only nine pitchers in the American League have a strikeout-to-walk ratio of better than 3.0, and two of them are atop the Red Sox rotation.

(Roy Halladay, by the way, has 151 strikeouts and 23 walks -- a ratio of 6.57. Amazing.)

3. Buchholz (3.99 ERA)
One thing Buchholz does better than anyone on the Red Sox pitching staff is induce the ground ball. As a team, the Red Sox have a ground ball/fly ball ratio of 0.73; that is, they allow four fly balls for every three ground balls they induce. Both Beckett and Lester do better than most -- they have GB/FB ratios of 0.90 and 0.96, respectively -- but they both still allow more fly balls than ground balls.

Not Buchholz. The 25-year-old righty has a 1.30 GB/FB ratio in his seven starts this seasno, and he's getting outs via the ground ball at a rate of better than 2-to-1. (Double plays, of course, inflate that rate. Still, though, even ground-ball specialist Justin Masterson only had a rate of ground outs to air outs of 1.59.)

If the season ended today, Buchholz almost certainly would start Game 3 of the Red Sox's first-round playoff series.

4. Wakefield (4.31 ERA)
The All-Star knuckleballer surrendered just two hits and one run in 5 2/3 solid innings for Triple-A Pawtucket on Friday and reassured the Red Sox that he could field his position well enough to pitch in the major-league rotation. He had an ERA of 4.31 in 17 starts before he landed on the disabled list with a back injury and, later, with pain related to a sciatic problem in his calf.

"He can cover his position and he's a really good pitcher," Francona told reporters on Saturday, "so I think we're OK."

He gets the edge over the team's No. 5 starter because he, if healthy, almost certainly would pitch Game 4 of any first-round playoff series. His knuckleball might always be a wild card, but he's far more difficult to bring out of the bullpen because of it.

5. Tazawa (3.57 ERA)
The 23-year-old rookie erased the memory of Penny's disastrous start by tossing six shutout innings and, perhaps even more impressively, outpitching A.J. Burnett, the Yankees' No. 2 starter. Tazawa now has a 3.57 ERA in his four appearances in the major leagues and appears to be getting more and more comfortable with his role.

Barring injury, it appears he'll be the fifth starter in the Red Sox rotation the rest of the way.

One thing he did particularly well was attack the strike zone -- especially against the Yankees' lefties. Tazawa pitched mostly away from the lefties in the Detroit lineup in his first start two weeks ago, conceding the Green Monster in order not to give up solid contact on the inside half of the plate. That's a mark of a rookie pitcher, a pitcher who doesn't quite believe that his stuff is good enough on its own.

Against the Yankees, though, he pitched inside to lefties with both his fastball and his curveball, and he got results. Check out the two graphs. First is his strike-zone chart -- as viewed from behind the plate -- against Detroit on Aug. 11...

... followed by his strike-zone chart against the Yankees on Saturday:

He also disguised his curveball far better in terms of release point, not giving away his pitch simply with the location of his hand when he let go of the ball. (The idea is for each pitch to come out of the hand in the same spot, so if the purple data points are distinguishable from the other data points, that's a problem.)

The first chart, again, is that start against Detroit...

... and the second is Saturday against New York.

Tazawa has all the goods to be a terrific major-league pitcher. He's not exactly the ground-ball specialist Buchholz is -- he recorded 11 fly-ball outs on Saturday and just four ground-ball outs -- but he's making a case right now to be part of the Red Sox rotation from the get-go next season.

6. Matsuzaka (rehabbing)
The pitcher who finished third in Cy Young voting is expected to make a rehab start in the Gulf Coast League on Monday and begin to climb the minor-league ladder from there. He might be a maddening pitcher at times, but he did throw seven shutout innings in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series a year ago and was viewed as the team's clear-cut No. 3 starter before the season.

If Matsuzaka returns in time to show off his progress before the season ends, he might again be that No. 3 starter in the team's postseason rotation.

7. Paul Byrd (in the minors)
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the struggles of Penny and Smoltz prompted the Red Sox to sign Byrd to a contract in hopes he could round himself into form in time for the stretch run. The veteran threw 74 pitches in four innings for the PawSox on Wednesday, surrendering three runs on six hits, and he'll likely pitch twice more in Pawtucket before rosters expand on Sept. 1.

8. Bowden (in the minors)
Don't make too much of Bowden's disastrous two innings against the Yankees. For one thing, he's been a starting pitcher all season and not only did he have to pitch in relief on Friday, he had to do so (a) after having warmed up once already only to sit back down; (b) with runners on first and third and no outs; and (c) against a lineup already feeling good about itself, as Francona would say.

If Wakefield gets hurt again and neither Matsuzaka nor Byrd pan out, Bowden likely would become the team's fifth starter in September.

9. Brad Penny (in limbo)
Here's the chart from Friday that tells the story:

Penny threw his fastball with good velocity (95 miles an hour) and even offset it with changeups, sliders and curveballs. But everything he threw was right down the middle of the plate. You can't win pitching like that.

Penny indicated earlier this season he has no desire to pitch out of the bullpen. He might not, however, have any say in the matter. His repertoire actually makes him a better fit as a reliever than as a starter, and he'd have a vested interest in performing well in mop-up duty as he heads back out on the open market this winter. (You can bet the Mets will be watching.)

With rosters due to expand a week from Tuesday, the Red Sox appear to have no reason to release Penny outright. If they can stash him away for seven or eight days, they can use him in mop-up duty out of the bullpen. If something goes terribly wrong in mid-September -- such as half the starting rotation catching swine flu -- he can make a spot start. Otherwise, though, he's all finished pitching meaningful innings in Boston.

N/A. Smoltz (DFA'ed) and Masterson (traded to Cleveland)
Both are gone. Neither is coming back.

Masterson, though, earned his first win as a member of the Cleveland Indians on Thursday night, tossing 6 1/3 strong innings to beat the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. He now has a 3.78 ERA since the Red Sox traded him to the Indians as part of the Victor Martinez deal on July 24.

But you have to give something to get something, right?

Victor Martinez and Clay Buchholz

"You really want to know what they like to do and what they don’t like to do in any situation. That way, you make it easier for them when they’re on the mound." -- Victor Martinez

New acquisition Victor Martinez caught Clay Buchholz on Thursday for the third time and essentially has become the young righty's personal catcher. Martinez, acquired from Cleveland two weeks ago, has caught John Smoltz once and Brad Penny once but now has caught Buchholz three times.

It's not easy for a catcher, even a veteran like Martinez, to come in right away and call games from behind the plate. He might know what a pitcher likes to throw to get a strikeout, for example, but he might not know how he likes to attack different hitters early in counts or what he wants to do when he needs a ground ball.

Buchholz pitched against the Oakland A's at Fenway Park on July 28, throwing to George Kottaras. He has thrown to Martinez in each of his last three starts. Here's a look at some of the contrasts between the two starts, contrasts that you can attribute, in part, to the way Martinez called the game.

(You have to take all of these adjustments with a grain of salt given the small sample size. Some of them might have been due to the difference in lineups or difference in ballparks. Still, though, it's interesting to look at.)

Pitch selection
Buchholz threw 57 fastballs, 23 changeups and a season-high 21 curveballs while pitching to Kottaras on July 28. It was the first time he'd thrown more than 20 curveballs in a game since he was called up from Triple-A Pawtucket at the All-Star break.

On Aug. 2, Martinez's first start behind the plate, Buchholz threw 47 fastballs, 18 changeups and just six curveballs. He also threw four sliders. Buchholz has said often in the last few weeks that he's struggled to get a feel for his curveball, and you could infer that he indicated that to Martinez during their conversations. He threw a handful of curveballs, but when the situation called for something other than a fastball, Martinez usually called for a changeup.

That theme repeated itself on Thursday.

Buchholz hasn't had a feel for the curveball and hasn't been able to throw it for strikes, and Martinez has gone right along with that, not being afraid to emphasize the changeup and slider if the curveball isn't there. Buchholz threw 60 fastballs and just eight curveballs, relying primarily on his changeup as a pitch to induce swings and misses as well as ground balls.

"I didn’t throw a whole lot of curveballs because I felt really good throwing the changeup," Buchholz said. "That’s been the biggest pitch for me throughout the last month or so. The slider came out of my hand pretty good today, but I didn’t see many opportunities to throw it. I thought I had a better matchup with the changeup. I thought I could have thrown either of the four pitches during the game, but I just preferred the changeup."

So, too, did Martinez. He's the one who calls the pitches.

Pitch location
Against the Athletics on July 28, Buchholz kept everything up and in, even throwing his curveball up and over the inner half.

(In looking at the approach charts, take the point of view of the catcher with the idea that everything on the left side of the chart is inside, to lefties or to righties, and everything on the right side of the chart is outside.)


Against the Orioles on Aug. 2, though, Martinez kept his target down and away. Buchholz threw just one curveball and just one changeup over the inner half of the plate, and everything else was away.


Staying on the outer half of the plate again is a way of simplifying everything. It takes quite a bit of confidence to attack the inside half of the plate, and you're not going to get burned nearly as badly by pitches on the outside corner as on the inside corner -- particularly with offspeed pitches.

Then again, it also leads to a lot of ground-ball outs. Here's Buchholz's approach chart from Thursday's loss to the Detroit Tigers:


It's obvious right away which previous start has more in common with Thursday. Buchholz and Martinez have come up with a game plan that consists primarily of pounding the outside corner with both fastballs and offspeed pitches, and it's starting to work.