Clay Dough...Pure Gold

Clay Buchholz is hitting his stride in a huge way. The Boston Red Sox defeated the KC Royals by a score of 1-0 Saturday evening at Fenway Park. It was another Buchholz beauty. His record is now 7-3 and I think every one of us is ecstatic that Theo didn't trade him. With Jon Lester, the two are our best and most consistant hurlers. His catcher, Victor Martinez, had this to say after the game...

“He had everything, everything, everything. Once again, he had everything working.’’

Here's Terry Francona, Red Sox manager...

“The cutter he’s throwing now — you can call it a slider, cutter — it’s become such a good weapon for him,’’ manager Terry Francona said. “He can get back into the count, get some misses with it, get some ground balls. Gives him another look. He’s got the velocity with the fastball, he’s got the changeup. It’s a pitch he’s really comfortable with.’’

All four of his pitches were fine tuned and ready to go. In his 7 innings, he allowed zero runs and 4 hits. He walked 4 and whiffed 4. Bard and Papelbon finished things up in this tense one run contest. Jon Lester will try to make it 2 in a row this afternoon at 1:35 pm. He'll face the (1-0) Chen in this 4 game series finale.

In other Red Sox news, it was announced that Josh Beckett will not make his return to the mound until further notice. He still has back pain which prevents him from keeping consistency in his delivery motion. Again, here's Tito with more...

“I think the thinking involved is he’s not able to repeat his delivery consistently enough and that worries us. He starts changing arm angles, you can run into some problems that we don’t need to run into, so until we’re a little bit more comfortable and he’s more comfortable, we’re going to just slow it down a little bit."

It's time for Timmy Wakefield to take it to another level. It's a good thing that Boston started the season with 6 starters but I know one thing for sure. Buchholz pitched a beauty...pure and simple.

Have a great Sunday and a terrific Memorial Day. I'm going to heat up the backyard gas grill for the first time this spring. It'll either be a steak or hamburgers with a couple ears of Florida corn on the cob wrapped in heavy duty foil and grilled to perfection. A little butter, a touch of salt and a little fresh cracked pepper with a salad and baked potato, also prepared on the grill, complete the feast. The salad will have my homemade dressing. I'll type up the recipe and post it soon. It's garlicky delicious with 3 kinds of vinager, extra virgin olive oil, Dijon mustard and fresh lemon with a dash of salt and a generous portion of fresh cracked pepper. There are a couple other ingredients added to the mix, too. One hard boiled egg yolk mashed in a cup with the mustard and garlic starts it all out. Romaine lettuce with croutons are a must, too. Medium rare, please, for the steak or burger. With fresh raw onion and ketchup, I'll be a happy camper. I just made myself very hungry and that's a good thing. It's not even 6 am yet. The propane tank is full and I'll go to Highland Park market here in Farmington to buy all the essentials. They have a superior meat department which is located adjacent to their fish selections. A shrimp cocktail with my special hot and lemony cocktail sauce will do it. MMM. The shrimp must be in a chilled bowl accompanied by a couple leaves of lettuce with added lemon dripped over the top. Astonishing.

You can click on the title of this post for more on the Buchholz beauty and as always, BE WELL. I 'll see you soon. Count on it. Have a great grillin' and chill'n holiday with a dash of sports and maybe a holiday beverage or two. That's the ticket!