Buchholz stymies Marlins
D-Backs pitcher earns 1st victory since 2016 season
In his second and, as it turned out, final start of last season, Clay Buchholz decided to stop babying his arm and tried to air it out, throwing his fastball as hard as he could. The flexor tendon in his right elbow detached, bringing a bone fragment with it.
“It felt,” Buchholz said, “just about how it sounds.”
Buchholz says he is a believer that everything happens for a reason, and he believes that injury had been destined to lead him to where he was on Friday night, surrounded by reporters in the Diamondbacks clubhouse, talking about his first win in the major leagues in 20 months.
Buoyed by a lineup that slammed a franchise-record-tying six home runs, Buchholz gave up just one run in seven innings in a 9-1 blowout of the Miami Marlins at Chase Field. It was the third time in as many starts with the Diamondbacks in which he threw well.
At 33, Buchholz has lost a few ticks off his fastball from when he was one of baseball’s most exciting young pitchers. Eleven years ago, he was a lanky, whiparmed right-hander who threw a no-hitter in his second career start with the Boston Red Sox.
But on Friday he was able to mix his four pitches – including a fastball that sat around 90 mph – to keep the Marlins guessing, often wrong, as he navigated his way through their lineup three-plus times.
“He executed everything,” Diamondbacks catcher John Ryan Murphy said. “You can probably count on one hand the pitches that he didn’t execute.”
For Buchholz, it had been a strange and grueling 14 months to get to this point. He thought he might have hurt himself on one of his final pitches of the 2016 season, a suspicion that was confirmed when he blew out early the next year.
He wound up having his flexor tendon anchored back in place by Dr. James Andrews, a surgery that had been a long time coming. Buchholz had had flexor issues as far back as 2015 and had been trying to get big-league hitters out despite it.
“It’s kind of hard to go out and face big league hitters,” Buchholz said, “when you’re 100 percent, much less 75.”
The surgery meant his 2017 season was finished after two starts.
And it meant he would be entering the free-agent market in a disadvantageous position. He went through the rehab process over the winter without a team, and he remained unsigned in February, when pitchers and catchers began to report.
He kept his arm in shape by playing catch with Austin, Texas, neighbor and fellow free agent Jake Arrieta until Arrieta signed with the Philadelphia Phillies in mid-March. A week or so later, Buchholz landed a minor-league deal with the Royals.
He made three starts in the minors with the Royals, opted out of his contract, signed with the Diamondbacks on another minor-league deal and made two starts with them before getting summoned to the big leagues.
In three starts since, Buchholz has logged 18 innings, allowed three runs, walked two and struck out 14. He’s reminding Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo of the pitcher he saw at times with the Red Sox, where Lovullo spent four years as bench coach.
“Very similar to what I remember,” Lovullo said. “It’s been similar for the past couple starts. It’s been very consistent since he’s joined us and a roll I’ve seen him get on in the past. It’s a lot of fun to watch.”
Times weren’t always good for Buchholz during his time in Boston. But, thinking back to his struggles on the field, he said he’d take those over the powerless feeling of being hurt. Still, he said he had never considered walking away from the game. He always believed better days were ahead.
“You’ve got to know that the good things are going to come,” he said. “That’s why I landed here. I stuck with it and kept going. I feel like I’m healthy. It’s a lot easier to go out there and throw. It’s a lot easier, with a five-day routine, to not be hurting in between (starts) and not knowing what you can put on the table and just hoping everything is going to be OK. That’s part of it, but I feel good right now.”