Clay Buchholz Should Have a Very Short Leash

In a few hours, the Red Sox play their first win-or-go-home game of the season. And with their season on the line, they’re handing the ball to Clay Buchholz.

Yes, the same Clay Buchholz who posted a 4.78 ERA, 5.06 FIP, and 5.32 xFIP this season while getting bounced from the rotation. Buchholz is getting the ball in large part because of how he finished the season, as he ran a 2.86 ERA over his final 10 appearances. But despite some talk of changes in his approach, the Red Sox should not fall victim to overweighting recent performance; most of the evidence suggests that Buchholz is still not a very good pitcher, and shouldn’t be allowed to dig the team any kind of hole this afternoon.

Even if we accept the arbitrary endpoints that allow a focus on just his 10 most recent appearances, Buchholz actually wasn’t even that good down the stretch. Here’s his line from those 10 outings, compared to his 27 appearances prior to that stretch.

The walks are down a little bit, the strikeouts are up a little bit, and overall, Buchholz did pitch better in the last 10 games than he did at the start of the year. But really, there’s one column there driving almost all of the difference: his home run rate got cut in half, which led to him stranding a bunch of runners. John Farrell even states this, without using numbers, in his assessment of Buchholz’s improvement.

“Where he was burnt earlier in the season by the big inning, he’s avoided the big inning by virtue of not allowing multiple runners inside of a given inning then a big blow, a three-run homer or something like that, has followed.

The argument for Buchholz as a pitcher worthy of starting an elimination game relies on buying into six weeks of home-run suppression; outside of the 7% HR/FB ratio he put up in those last 10 outings, he still didn’t really pitch all that well. And it’s not like Buchholz has a long history of running very low HR/FB rates; his career mark is 10%, just a tick below the league average over those years. His career FIP and xFIP are almost identical, so there just isn’t any real reason to think that Buchholz is now a guy who give up long fly-ball outs without giving up home runs.

And without long fly-ball outs, Buchholz is still a guy with shaky command who doesn’t miss bats. Even during his “good” stretch — which requires us to ignore his lousy start on August 13th for the sole purpose of making his last 10 appearances look better — he ran a below-average strikeout rate, and it’s not like an 8% walk rate is anything to write home about. He does get enough infield flies to hold down BABIP a bit, but again, he has a career .287 mark; he isn’t Marco Estrada or anything.

Because of the rainout yesterday, the Red Sox can now throw Rick Porcello and David Price on regular rest in Games 4 and 5, so the Red Sox don’t need to really have a traditional starting pitcher today. Eduardo Rodriguez, the original Game 4 starter, is now available out of the bullpen, plus the team still has both Joe Kelly and Drew Pomeranz, former starters who have been very good in relief and can go multiple innings. Between those four, plus the regular relievers, there’s no real reason for Buchholz to throw more than a couple of innings today.

With Rodriguez and Pomeranz from the left side complementing Buchholz and Kelly from the right side, John Farrell should be able to play matchups with non-specialists early and often, and shouldn’t be afraid to use his bullpen as soon as a rally starts to threaten the team’s season. With a fully rested bullpen and the team’s two best starters scheduled to start the next two games, this is the game to make as many pitching changes as necessary.

Despite his low ERA the last 10 outings, Buchholz is still not a very good pitcher, and should be treated accordingly. Especially with a plethora of options available, there’s just no reason to let a mediocre pitcher dig a hole for a team in a game they can’t lose. At the first sign of trouble, John Farrell should have his bullpen ready. The Red Sox best chance to stay alive in the ALDS is to make sure Clay Buchholz isn’t given a chance to put them behind.