It wasn't perfect, but better

• Recommend0
• Tweet0
• Comments0
• Email
• Print

MINNEAPOLIS -- For a pitcher, the beauty of a perfect game like the one thrown by Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox, the right-hander who will be facing the Boston Red Sox on Thursday night in Chicago five days after his perfecto in Seattle, is its symmetry. Three batters up, three batters down, one inning after the next, until a zero has been posted under all nine innings.

Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz has made four starts this season, in which he has thrown a total of 22 1/3 innings -- the fraction coming in his 5 1/3-inning outing Wednesday night in Boston's 7-6 win over the Minnesota Twins.

Buchholz has retired the side in order just three times all season -- two innings against Tampa Bay on April 14 and the fifth inning here Wednesday night.

[+] Enlarge

Hannah Foslien/Getty Images"Clay was very much improved," manager Bobby Valentine said of Buchholz. "He scattered singles around the ballpark until [Denard Span's] double. He kept the ball down much better."

"It's a struggle when you're throwing pitches and guys put the ball in play -- it's either in the infield or outfield and nobody is standing there," Buchholz said. "That's the way it goes. It's got to change. It can't stay that way all year."

It was more than that in his previous start, of course. Buchholz was taken deep five times by the Yankees.

Four times Buchholz has taken the mound this season, and four times he has been charged with five runs. Wednesday night he departed in the sixth with a 7-2 lead and the bases loaded. By the time the inning ended, the Sox were clinging to a 7-6 lead.

It stayed that way until the end, when Alfredo Aceves struck out Denard Span with the bases loaded for his fourth save. Relievers Vicente Padilla and Franklin Morales provided a six-up, six-down bridge until the ninth after Matt Albers had ended the Twins' uprising in the sixth by inducing a double-play ball from Sean Burroughs.

"We had it all the way," Buchholz said sardonically. "It's never easy. You know that no team we play will give us a game."

The Twins left 13 runners on base Sunday night. They put 13 runners on base against Buchholz, on 10 hits and three walks. At least two men reached in every inning but the fifth.

It was a tightrope act all night, eased only by the fact that the Sox jumped to a 7-1 lead in the first four innings. So, what to make of Buchholz's outing?

"Clay was very much improved," manager Bobby Valentine said. "He scattered singles around the ballpark until [Denard Span's] double. He kept the ball down much better. And he had a very good curveball, the best curveball I've ever seen him throw."

There were definitely things to like. Buchholz did a great job throwing first-pitch strikes, doing so to 23 of the 29 batters he faced. He kept the ball down, inducing 11 ground-ball outs. He topped out at 94 mph, and in addition to having a dominant curveball, he threw 17 of 24 cutters for strikes, including his best one of the night, one on the hands of Joe Mauer that tied him up and resulted in an inning-ending popup with runners on second and third in the fourth.

More On The Red Sox

Gordon Edes and the rest of the ESPNBoston.com team have the Red Sox covered for you. Blog

And yet all 10 of the Twins' hits came off the bats of left-handed hitters (10-for-21, .476) and there were still more two-strike hits than he would have liked to have seen.

Buchholz contended that Span's double (which came on one of only a half-dozen changeups he threw all night, one down in the zone) and Ben Revere's double in the second (on a cutter that stayed over the middle of the plate) were the only balls that the Twins squared up all night.

"I executed pitches a lot better today than in my last three starts," he said. "It's been a struggle, with location and command for each pitch. I had really good command of a couple off-speed pitches tonight."

Buchholz's best pitch is typically his changeup, but he said he had good reasons to stay away from it Wednesday. One is that he felt he had good depth on his cutter. The other?

"Their guys' swing paths stay in the zone a long time," he said. "The change is not a good pitch for that reason. I threw only [six] changes today. That's a rarity for me."

Valentine was inclined to agree that Buchholz was better than the numbers suggest.

"We'll take that Clay Buchholz," he said. "We'll take our chances with that. And it's a W. Thank goodness."

Gordon Edes covers the Red Sox for ESPNBoston.com.

• Recommend0
• Tweet0
• Comments0
• Email
• Print
• Subscribe

Gordon Edes

Red Sox reporter, ESPNBoston.com

• Follow
• Archive

• Has covered Red Sox for 15 years
• Award-winning beat reporter
• Joined ESPNBoston.com in 2009