The current management group of the Boston Red Sox has done, for the most part, an admirable job of protecting young pitchers while still developing them to the point where they have been able to help the big club, in many cases much sooner than people expected. The recent successes of Jonathan Papelbon and Jon Lester are two good examples.

The Red Sox dropped the ball with Clay Buchholz, though, in a big way. Maybe it was the lure of all that talent that shone through last September 1 when Buchholz, then only 22 years old and in his second big league start, threw a no-hitter against Baltimore, striking out nine, in a 10-0 victory.

Maybe it was the notion that the problems Buchholz started having in early May could be worked out while in the rotation. Or maybe it was simply a situation where, with injuries to Curt Schilling, Bartolo Colon and Tim Wakefield, the Red Sox felt that they simply could not afford to demote the youngster to work out his problems.

Whatever the reason, Boston's handling of a young pitcher with a tremendous upside has backfired. After his start on May 2, when Buchholz went 5.1 innings, giving up five hits and one run in a 7-3 victory over Tampa Bay, he had evened his record at 2-2, with a very respectable 3.71 ERA.

Since that time, however, everything has fallen apart in what has been a slow-motion train wreck that has been excruciating to watch and undoubtedly even more painful for the 23 year old to live through. In ten appearances since then, nine of them starts, Buchholz has pitched just 42 innings, giving up 43 earned runs on 62 hits and 27 walks, for an ERA of 9.21!

Oh yeah, and in those appearances the kid has racked up an impressive 0-7 record. His season ERA has jumped from that 3.71 mark on May 2 to where it currently stands, 6.75. He has given up runs in every single appearance and pitched a total of just 6.1 innings in his last three, giving up eleven earned runs. The wheels fell off the bus a long time ago, and now the entire bus has fallen apart around him.

You didn't have to be a pitching coach to see this coming, either. For at least the last six weeks, it has been obvious to anyone watching that Clay Buchholz has been pitching without the slightest confidence that he can get anyone out, and yet the Red Sox have been sending him out there time and again to put on a blindfold, smoke one last cigarette, and get the firing squad treatment from an assortment of different teams.

What, technically, his problems are is a mystery to me, and apparently to the Red Sox, since they weren't able to fix him. After his last disastrous appearance against Baltimore on August 20, when he went just 2.1 innings and gave up five earned runs, he was given his ticket down to Double A, where, hopefully, he can work his problems out without the pressure of a pennant race hanging over his head.

Clay Buchholz was not ready for this, and Boston management should have seen it by mid-June. He may very well get his act together in the minor leagues and come back and be a dominant pitcher for years, but if that doesn't happen, some people should be made to answer some very tough questions about why they let this kid twist in all the wind generated by guys running around the bases on him for three months before they did anything about it.

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