Around the AL: Buchholz sent to minors

The same team that helped Clay Buchholz make baseball history also shoved him back down to the minors a year later.

Buchholz no-hit the Baltimore Orioles as a Boston Red Sox rookie last September, but he was optioned to Double-A Portland following an 11-6 loss at Camden Yards.

“That's not good, [with] your expectations, to say, ‘Yeah, I think I'm going to get sent down,’ after each start,” Buchholz said. “But the last couple starts, it's hard to think they can give me any more opportunities than they have in this stretch, especially with only a month and a half left in the season and the pennant race as close as it is now. You've got to send guys out there that . . . you believe they're going to go out there and give you a win or give you six, seven innings, and I haven't been doing that. So I hate to say it was the right decision, but I believe it was.”

Manager Terry Francona said the club needed to give Buchholz “a little bit of a renewed start.”

“It's obviously not working right now,” he said. “I think we all believe strongly that it will work, but at the moment, it's difficult.”

Buchholz’s no-hitter came in only his second major league start. It was a warm-and-fuzzy story, but he’s gone cold. His ERA was 9.22 in his last eight starts before the demotion.

“You're down there to develop and everybody knows that,” Buchholz said of pitching in the minors. "Up here you're in a pennant race. I've never been one to say that pressure was too much for me, but I've felt like I've had a lot of weight on my shoulders, just trying to be perfect, trying to do everything as well as I could to help this team win, and it hasn't been near good enough.

“The decision was coming. It had to be made soon. They had given me ample opportunity to help this team and to help myself out up here, and it just hasn't worked out.”

Who’s to blame?

When the Orioles placed closer George Sherrill on the disabled list, retroactive to Aug. 16, with inflammation in his left shoulder, it seemed to provide further proof that the 2 1/3 innings he was forced to throw in the All-Star Game were too much for him.

Before the break, Sherrill had 28 saves and a 4.08 ERA, and opponents batted .221 against him in 37 games. In his 10 appearances after the break, Sherrill had three saves and a 5.91 ERA, and opponents were batting .295.

Though Sherrill’s excessive use in the All-Star Game angered management, the Orioles weren’t laying any blame for the injury Francona, the AL manager.

“I don’t know, that would be pure speculation,” manager Dave Trembley said. “I think that would be easy to fall back on and point fingers at, and I’d prefer to take the high road and stay away from that.”

Said team president Andy MacPhail: “The doctors tell us that stuff is cumulative. It’s not something that is a function of one event, so I don’t think we can hang anybody on that.”

Even so, Francona placed calls to MacPhail, pitching coach Rick Kranitz and Sherrill after hearing about the DL move.

“He just was concerned and he wanted to make sure he didn’t have anything to do with it,” Sherrill said. "But (the All-Star Game) was just another step in the process. Being a lefty specialist and only getting 40-whatever innings the last few years and then all of the sudden having 50 already, it’s just that on top of everything else.”

Said Francona: “I don’t think we were disrespectful or ignorant of him. I do understand that now he’s on the DL, so I called him. I don’t want to see a kid go on the DL anyway, not if I have something to do with it. But I don’t want them to go on the DL anyway.”

Better late than never

On April 28, a game between the Orioles and Chicago White Sox was called after 11 innings because of inclement weather — heavy rains, winds, cold, etc. It resumed 118 days later, on Aug. 25, at Camden Yards. The Orioles were the visiting team in their own ballpark, with Kevin Millar leading off the top of the 12th inning.

The Orioles pushed across the go-ahead run in the 14th on a two-out single by Lou Montanez, who was playing at Double-A Bowie in April.

Rocky Cherry, who was rehabbing his injured shoulder at the minor league complex in Sarasota four months ago, picked up his first major league save by leaving the bases loaded, after left-hander Alberto Castillo recorded his first major league win. The last time this happened to the Orioles was July 2, 2004 in Philadelphia, when Eddy Rodriguez got his first win and Daniel Cabrera his first save in a 7-6, 16-inning win over the Phillies.

 “It was good for our team,” Trembley said, “and I didn’t have long underwear on today.”

Some quick hits

• Kansas City pitcher Brian Bannister gave up 10 runs in one inning last weekend, a feat accomplished just seven other times in the majors since 1956. Of the eight pitchers on the list, four are Royals. To find the most recent before Bannister, you have to go all the way back to July 21, when Jimmy Gobble took a beating.

• Speaking of the Royals, Mitch Maier was hit in the face with a fastball from Cleveland starter Zach Jackson last week while trying to bunt and suffered three broken bones near his right cheek. The swelling makes it difficult for Maier to open his right eye, and his nose has been bleeding regularly. “Beyond that,” he said, “I feel fine.”

• It took 14 games and 45 at-bats, but Ken Griffey Jr. finally hit his first home run with the White Sox, connecting off Seattle’s R.A. Dickey last Wednesday. It also was Griffey’s first extra-base hit since the trade. “I’ve just been pressing a little,” he said. “It’s human nature to want to do well, especially at home.”

• Chicago’s Carlos Quentin was hit by a pitch in six straight games, which is a modern record. “I don’t want to talk about that,” he said. “It’s not really that funny.” It is when you’re not the one being hit.

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