Why not move Buchholz to the pen? - A look back on yesterday's game

You know, I’ve been reading so much about Buchholz lately that I feel bad just bringing his name up right now.  He’s pitching bad, and he knows he’s pitching bad.  So I’m going to go down a different road here:  How about moving Buchholz from the rotation into the bullpen?

I mean, if you think about it, Buchholz usually can make it a couple of innings without running into trouble.  But with all this talk about bringing Masterson back into the rotation (which I am in full agreement of), why not simply switch him and Buchholz?  I’m sure there are other things that I haven’t even though that could present a problem.  Please leave your thoughts and ideas here if you can think of any.  But I think it would be a good idea. 

One last thing on Buchholz yesterday and then I’ll move on.  Did anyone see how Sean Casey went to the mound yesterday when they took Buchholz out?  I dunno if there were any other players on the mound as well, but Sean Casey was there giving Buchholz a pat on the back.  What a great guy to have on the team.  I keep hearing about what a nice guy Casey is, and yesterday I finally got to see an example of it.  I tell you, if I was ever fortunate enough to play in the big leagues, I’d sure like to be on Casey’s team – utility man or not.  What a great guy. 

Although yesterday was very frustrating, I’ll tell you what wasn’t frustrating: Watching Mike Lowell hit that three-run shot in the 1^st was such a great thing to see.  It was nice to see that after hearing about all the injuries during the pregame.  It was nice to see that because you knew the Sox were gonna need to get a lot of runs on the board.  But most importantly, it was great to see Mike Lowell show a huge sign on breaking out of his slump.  Unfortunate, he would later hit into a big double play in the 7^th inning, with the bases loaded.  I’m sure that put a huge damper on his day, especially after his throwing error in the second inning.  But you can’t get everything right.  And besides, Lowell got an error because that’s what you need to put down in writing, but you couldn’t blame him for trying to throw the man out at home.  The ball took a high bounce, and Lowell had to rush the throw to home with a bad grip on the ball.  If the ball didn’t bounce so high, it would have been an easy out.  Unfortunately that wasn’t the case.  But the important thing is that Lowell got a home run this game, which means he’s hitting better. 

Before I get ready to watch the pregame, I’ll end with this: What on earth would we do without Justin Masterson?  He goes 2.2 innings, giving up only one hit, zero walks, zero runs, and 5 strikeouts.  As I mentioned earlier, I agree with moving Masterson to the rotation again, but he sure has been helping our bullpen out. 

Final game of the series.  We’re 4.5 games out of first. We could really use a win tonight. 

Keep the faith.

Post game notes:

-Charlie Zink:  I haven’t really heard this name much before the last couple of days, but he’s moving up from AAA Pawtucket to pitch on Tuesday for Tim Wakefield.  This seems quite appropriate, seeing as he’s a knuckleball pitcher as well. 

-Bartolo Colon:  Colon had a much better second rehab start, throwing 34 pitches and 27 of them for strikes.  He gave up three hits while striking out three. He did not walk a single batter.  Although this is great news, let’s remember that 34 pitches is merely more than a relief appearance.  Redsox.com reports that he will make a few more starts before coming back up to Boston.