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August 22, 2007
BUFFALO, N.Y. - It just wasn’t Clay Buchholz night.
Buchholz knows September call-ups are coming and he has every intention of being on the Boston Red Sox shopping list when they pluck players from Pawtucket, so last nights outing couldn’t have come at a more inopportune moment.
Ryan Mulhern went 2-for-4 and Joe Inglett (3-for-4) had four RBI to the lead Buffalo Bisons to a 7-6 win over Pawtucket in front of 10,586 fans at Dunn Tire Park Wednesday night.
A sandwich pick (42nd overall) in the 2005 First-Year Player Draft Buchholz is rated by Baseball America as the top pitching and No.2 overall prospect in the Boston chain.
Promoted to Pawtucket on July 12, Buchholz didn’t have to wait long for his first taste Major League action as he made his Fenway Park debut on August 17 in the Red Sox 8-4 win over Los Angles Angels. Buchholz logged six innings, struck out five and yielded three earned runs on eight hits.
But he wasn’t anywhere near as effective Wednesday night against the Bisons.
Relying mostly on his curve and fastball, Buchholz struggled with his command all the night, especially in the first inning when he issued back-to-back walks to Keith Ginter and Andy Marte to load the bases.
Buchholz did manage to work out of the jam when he induced a first-pitch fly out to Bisons catcher Mike Rose.
The Bisons (69-61) did score one run in the first when Mulhern’s RBI double brought Inglett home. Reaching base on a hit-by-pitch Iglett advanced to second base when Buchholz (1-2) picked off attempt sailed beyond the reach of first baseman Jeff Bailey.
A strikeout pitcher Buchholz never found his normal groove of attacking batters and his breaking pitches seemed to hang over the plate more frequently than usual. Something the Bisons took full advantage of.
Buchholz (three strikeouts) lasted just three innings giving up three runs on four hits and a walk. Buchholz threw 63 pitches with 36 of them landing in the strike zone.
Buchholz also had to do an emergency duck-and-tuck in the third when Andy Marte sent a screaming line drive up the middle that almost hit Buchholz.
While lackluster offense early on didn’t help Pawtucket (62-68) the Bisons received timely hitting as they plated each of its first three runs with two-outs.
Bisons starter Jeremy Sowers (4-5), who ironically enough was pitching on his own bobble-head night, took a no-hitter into the fifth inning. He retired 14 of the first 15 batters he faced, shortstop Jed Lowrie drew a walk in the first, before catcher George Kottaras broke up the no-hit bid with a single to left field.
Junior Spivey drove Kottaras in when he sent a Sowers 2-0 offering over the left field wall for his first home run of the season, trimming the Bisons lead to 3-2.
Inglett extended the Bisons lead to 6-2 in the sixth when he stroked a bases-clearing line-drive triple to right field off Craig Breslow.
The PawSox kept it exciting as they mounted two late inning rallies, The first coming in the seventh when Sowers walked Kottaras to load the bases after back-to-back singles from Jeff Bailey and Bobby Scales, but they were unable to punch a run across the plate.
Lowrie cracked a three-run shot off of Bisons reliever Jason Stanford in the ninth to trim the lead to 7-6, but the rally stalled there.
“We had a really poor night situational (hitting). That’s why you play 27 outs because you never know. We got that big three-run homer…we had enough opportunities we had enough hits but if we put the ball in play (situational) its probably a different ball game,” said Pawtucket manager Ron Johnson.
“Sowers stymied us for five innings Spivey had the homer so we put some pressure on them. But you’ve got to get them across.”
--DAVE RICCI (Special to the Journal)
Posted by Corey Bourassa 
at 10:40 PM to PawSox
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