Oops! We Forgot The Bats!

The streak is over. Which streak, you ask? The 5-game winning streak? The 20-inning scoreless pitching streak? Jed Lowrie's hit streak? All 3, unfortunately. Buchholz gave me disturbing 2008 flashbacks in his 4-run, 12-hit outing, but at least he went 6 2/3 and kept the ball in the ballpark. The offense missed the flight, and spent the last two days at Disneyland. Clutch hitting was absent. Riding Space Mountain, perhaps? Jed Lowrie looked more like Jet Lag. The Carl Crawford we saw in the last two games out west was nowhere to be found. When the sacks were full in the 5th, Adrian Gonzalez was out to lunch (or, at that hour, maybe it was dinner). Perhaps the Red Sox batters need to be hypnotized when there are men on base to believe that the bases are empty. Pinch-hitter Marco Swing-at-the-first-pitch-aro gave the O's about as easy a last out as they could hope for. Maybe that day off killed their momentum. When you're going good, you don't want days off. Of course, it was a scheduled off-day, so nothing they could have done about that. Just bad luck.

Perhaps I was spoiled by all the shutdown pitching of late, but Buchholz looking like his 2008 self is very unsettling. He had such a stellar, breakout season last year and following that up is no easy task, but I didn't expect this much regression. It's still early in the season and he could be having one of those Aprils that Lester, before this year, had been known to have. Does he really miss throwing to V-Mart that much? Is he having a tough time adjusting to a new pitching coach? I guess we'll have to wait and see how it plays out. If the other four starters continue to toss quality starts (not necessarily shutouts, although those are nice), Buch's scuffling on the mound won't be too big of an issue, but if one or two of the others falters, things can go downhill in a hurry.

Tomorrow, Beckett is back on the bump, searching for win #3. The run support came too late last time against the Angels, when he allowed a 2-run dinger to Torii Hunter in the 7th, went out to pitch the 8th, but his teammates couldn't muster enough runs to win until the 11th, after he had left the game. The O's have Guthrie going and let's hope the Sox offense arrives at Camden Yards by game time.