Free Ride............

Well theme of the night was supposed to be Clay Buchholtz's return to the Boston Red Sox, however bad pitching and worse umpiring ruled the night.  Buchholtz was a complete disaster last night, and he seemed plagued by the same delivery problems that sent him to triple A Pawtucket in the first place.

  Buchholtz only managed to go five innings last night in his return, and he needed 107 pitches to get that far.  He allowed four earned runs on five hits and five walks in that short timeframe.  Mkaes you wonder if the Sox should have left Masterson in with the big club, and left Buchy in Pawtucket to get some extended work.  The word out of Pawtucket was that Bucky's problems were fixed and he was more effcient with his pitches.  Neither was the case last night, and for the record the sox already have one pitcher that averages five innings a start(Dice-K).

  Clay's short night on the mound meant a long night for the bullpen, and a longer night for Red Sox Nation watching those sleds attempt to pitch clean innings.  In four innings, the bullpen allowed three runs and three walks, along with two hits and two strikeouts in four innings of work, pathetic.  Manny Delcarmen had the most damage done to him, as he allowed two runs on two walks and a hit in his one inning of work last night.  Somewhere out there his parents are trying to change thier last names to avoid any further shame by being known as his parents.

  The Sox hitters had thier chances last night, but stranded alot of baserunners in key spots.  Last night the top of the Red Sox order combined to go 0-13 for the game.  Included in that was an 0-5 by lead-off hitter Jacoby Ellsbury, who continues his all or nothing trend.  Dustin Pedoria had his 17 game hit streak snapped when he took a base om balls to load the bases in the bottom of the 9th.  Kevin Youlilis had a chance to extend the game for Manny (2-3 last night), however Youkilis who always looks at pitches decided to only see three strikes last night.  His choke job ended the game before Manny could have a say.

  Julio Luggo was involved in a strange play that helped add outs to an inning that the Sox were scoring runs in.  Luggo was called out at first, when even live speed  replays showed he was safe by five or so steps.  Even ESPN had a laugh over the play, it was clearly another job well done by the umps. Luggo was pulled later after a leg problem.  The good news for Sox fans is that if Luggo's injury is prolonged we may get another visit by shortstop of the future Jed Lowerie.