BOSTON -- On Saturday Clay Buchholz returned to the mound at Fenway Park for the first time since June 3, 2011 after missing the second half of last season with a back injury.
It took a few innings to get settled in -- including four first-inning runs from the Tampa Bay Rays -- Buchholz finished the game with five strikeouts over seven innings. After giving up six hits, five earned runs, and a three-run homerun to Luke Scott -- he retired 12 of the last 13 batters he faced to earn his first win of the 2012 season.
I felt really good physically, he said following the Red Sox 13-5 victory. I felt at the beginning of the game, the changeup wasnt there, everything was up. I was trying to be too quick to the plate out of the stretch and that causes the pitches to be up in the zone. After that third inning when I gave up the run (RBI double by Scott), everything seemed to settle down and stopped missing the fat part of the bat.
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Buchholz (1-0, 9.82 ERA) tossed 104 pitches and struggled with the pitch count to start the afternoon. But manager Bobby Valentine decided to keep him in the game and Buchholz adjusted.
Rather than focus on one inning at a time, he went pitch-by-pitch and tried to keep the pace of the game moving along.
I think he was a little quick in the beginning, said catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia. I think he was really rushing a little bit, just trying to make his pitches knowing its an aggressive team. I think he might have felt like he was trying to spot it too well, left some balls up. But every inning he got better and better and better. It paid off.
He added, Hes fun to catch. Hes a competitor, he showed it tonight. Its tough to come back from a deficit like that.
Buchholz gave credit to his teammates for fighting back on offense after trailing 4-0 after the first inning. The Red Sox scored eight runs between the seventh and eighth innings alone.
I think if you ask any of the starters on this team, its all about winning, he said. If were out there long enough and the team can score runs like they did today and get the pitcher back in the game and not have to go out there and pitch with stress with every pitch that you throw, I think that youd get the same answer from everybody. You dont want to give up runs, you dont want to walk guys, but its always the result that youre looking at. You want those Ws.