The Arizona Diamondbacks had a month to forget, but they started June off on the right foot. And a major reason for that is because of Clay Buchholz.
The unpredictable losses of Taijuan Walker and Robbie Ray were part of the reason why the Arizona Diamondbacks struggled so much in May. Walker is out for the year and Ray remains sidelined, thus their replacements must step up in their interim.
Southpaw Matt Koch earned support during his first few outings in April, but he was mediocre last month. Arizona rolled the dice with Kris Medlen, who retired from baseball shortly after his first start for the club.
Nevertheless, Clay Buchholz, arguably the most unlikeliest contributor of the bunch, has provided a short-term boost for the Diamondbacks. In three starts, Buchholz owns a 1.50 ERA with 14 strikeouts and just one walk.
Buchholz’s most recent outing was a seven-inning masterpiece against the Marlins. His offense supported him with five home runs, though that doesn’t take away from Buchholz’s outstanding performance.
Arizona took a flier on the former Boston starter, signing him to a minor-league deal in early May. Both general manager Mike Hazen and manager Torey Lovullo spent time in Beantown before heading to the desert. Thus, it seems like anything but a coincidence for why they took a chance on the 33-year-old veteran.
The right-hander faced a rough patch following his last All-Star season in 2013. After the Red Sox traded him in 2016, he became irrelevant after pitching just two games in 2017 due to an injury.
Kansas City offered him a chance this offseason, and he wasn’t bad. He owned a 1.64 ERA across two starts in Triple-A Omaha. Yet, the front office cut ties with him anyways.
Will he continue to stymy hitters?
Buchholz’s recent history suggests he will falter once he faces better offenses. Two of his three starts were against the Mets and Marlins, who rank 26th and 30th in runs scored, respectively.
However, he did showcase some promising signs of a resurgence – even if short-lived.
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Buchholz fares best when he can utilize all of his five pitches. It’s essentially why he was able to claim two All-Star appearances. More importantly, he has to be able to keep hitters off-balance since his velocity has diminished.
So far, it’s worked. He notched multiple strikeouts with all of his pitches across his three starts.
There are some troublesome signals, though. When opponents made contact against Buchholz, they hit fly balls more than half the time. Moreover, left-handed hitters made hard or medium contact on nearly 85% of the balls hit, per FanGraphs.
More home runs could be on the horizon.
And even though Buchholz has double-digit strikeouts for the Diamondbacks, he is allowing a lot of contact. That’s something he struggled with throughout his career, averaging about 8.5 hits per nine innings in his career.
Nevertheless, he found a way to succeed in the past, even without a copious amount of punch-outs in the past. Therefore, he will likely continue to pitch to contact and take whatever strikeouts he can get.
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However, no one is sure if Buchholz will continue to shut teams down for Arizona. But if he can be somewhat efficient until Ray gets back, or until Shelby Miller returns, Lovullo will take it.