Soxwoman Speaks

There will come a day at Fenway Park when Clay Buchholz's name will be spoken with the same reverence as Dick Radatz, or Pedro Martinez. When the park will be abuzz with talk of his latest heroic effort, of great hitters mowed down with ease, of his (next) no-hitter.

However, today is not that day...and tomorrow is not looking so good, either.

Please. Somebody help this kid before he implodes.

What's even worse is that Clay seems to think he is feeling good. "Same story but I actually felt like I threw the pitches -- made the pitches today -- and they got hit," said Buchholz, who is 2-8 with a 6.32 ERA,  and 0-5 with a 7.42 ERA in six starts since being recalled from Pawtucket on July 11.  Jeez, Clay, I'd hate to see what thery would have done to you if you, like, stunk or anything...

Terry Francona, who could wax enthusiastic about a cow dung sandwich if he had to, said only,"I just think, and we keep saying it, but experience is going to be big for this kid. Right now he's experiencing just about everything. He's experiencing a lot and hopefully digesting it fast."

Yeah, Tito, a lot of failure. I don't care who's on the DL or what you don't have in the minors. This kid needs to get out of the rotation before he turns into Wily Mo Pena, great potential never realized.

Interesting take on the Manny circus by Tim Brown over at Yahoo! Sports. At the very least, it does go to show that anyone who thinks Manny has been "dogging it" all season is simply nuts...and echoes what I strongly suspect is the truth about the situation: The Red Sox only "had" to trade him because they had finally decided they wanted to trade him, not because anything with Manny had really changed.

Last game of the wraparound today, a need-to win IMO. The Sox are 4.5 back of Tampa in the division (what happened to the Rays' implosion we've been hearing about since May? They've now won three in a row), and 1.5 ahead of Minnesota in the wild card. Beckett's on the mound, so there's hope.

(Clay pic lifted from yahoosports.com)