Clay Buchholz: THE REAL DEAL

I drove up to Norwich tonight to see the Portland Sea Dogs play a double header against the Connecticut Defenders , mainly to get a closer look at Sox wonder boy Clay Buchholz, who pitched game one of the twin bill. Buchholz is the real deal and seems more advanced at this stage in his development than Jon Papelbon was. Today he struggled a little bit with fastball command, but his off speed stuff was unhittable. Buchholz did a fantastic job mixing up his pitches, keeping batters off balance throughout the game. Clay finished with the win, pitching 5 innings of no run ball. He fanned six batters and only walked one. This season, Buchholz is 5-2 with a 1.82 ERA and 100 K's in 74 innings pitched.

Buchholz throws a fastball that sits in the low 90's and tops out around 97, a hard 12-6 curve and a plus changeup. He was drafted by the Red Sox in the supplemental first round of the 2005 MLB Draft. Clay was rated by Baseball America as the Red Sox #2 prospect at the beginning of this season. With their starting pitching depth, the Red Sox have no need to rush Buchholz to the majors. He should debut late next season or in early 2009 after gaining some more experience and developing better fastball command. With the graduation of big name pitching prospects Homer Bailey, Yovanni Gallardo, Tim Lincecum and Phil Hughes, Buchholz should be involved in the discussion for best Minor League pitching prospect. Red Sox Nation should be very,very excited about the 22 year old, who has the ability to become one of Boston's all time greats.

RANDOM NOTES

- Coco Crisp has caught fire and is showing why the Sox picked him to replace Johnny Damon. Coco has hit 3 Home Runs the last 3 games. In his last 7 games, Crisp has been 12-23, raising his batting average from .223 to .250.

- Congratulations to Red Sox farm hand, Bubba Bell. The Lancaster outfielder was named the California League All Star Game MVP. Bell went 3-5 with 2 RBI in the game. The 24 year old who has turned himself from a filler into a prospect needs to be promoted to Double A to figure out whether or not most of his success should be attributed to the Lancaster ballpark, which is the biggest launching pad in all of Minor League Baseball. On the season, Bell is batting .347/.440/.604 with 16 Home Runs. He also has ten steals.

- Jeff Francis threw 7 innings, giving up one run on 5 hits, leading the Colorado Rockies to a 6-1 victory over Andy Pettite and the New York Yankees. The Yanks are now 10 games behind the Sox in the AL East standings. HA HA HA!!!