So this week there was an event that happened during a Blue Jays game that surprised me. Now I'm not referring to Buchholz using something to slick the ball, I'm talking about Jack Morris and Dirk Hayhurst making the accusations without any absolute evidence. Now first thing I've come to accept is that nearly ALL pitchers have something that they use to improve grip, though this may not always be something that gives an incredible advantage but just a small bit more of movement or better grip can be the difference between a strikeout and a home run. Now before you label me a Red Sox hater or anything I don't plan on flaming Buchholz here (hell I have him on a couple fantasy teams and need his production =P). What I am going to do is run over a few observations/arguments/facts for and against Buchholz cheating and just a little summary of what I make of everything.
For Clay Cheating:
-The radical change in skill from 2011/2012 to this season
-The pictures of him wiping 'something' off his arm
-Strange behaviour
Against Clay Cheating
-Changing of Red Sox staff
-It's rosin on his arm
-Defence by Dennis Eckersley
Ok so first lets take a look at the first pair of arguments. Now nay sayers of Buchholz's ability would say 'well he was terrible before how can he be this amazing now?'. Now there is only a little validity to this claim and that is because, in part, of the change in the red sox staff, why?, because if you look closely at Buchholz's history he was pretty fantastic in 2010 but then dropped off in 2011 and 2012. Now in 2010 John Farrell was the pitching coach and according to interviews both him and Lester had a very good history with him and trusted him a fair bit so obviously when bringing in another new face to act as pitching coach would make these two guys a little uncomfortable when, since they had been developing their stuff with John for so long. Now Buchholz's 2011 started off good but he had a season ending injury that pushed him out in June, now he did have a decent W-L record during the time he pitched (6-3) but an ERA of 3.48, which is about average but in a lot of cases, especially when your dealing with a young player dealing with his first major injury they may try to cover it up/pitch around it and won't let anyone in until it is unavoidable. I mean if your work was doing something you loved and all of a sudden something happened that threw your future in that line of work into turmoil you'd probably try your best to work around it right? So theres an explanation for the 2011 season and the 2012 season is even easier to explain, that clubhouse was more toxic than an unkempt nuclear reactor, Bobby Valentine just made the atmosphere awful for those players and as a result nearly all of the Sox players had pretty bad years. So I think we can pretty much say that the argument that this level of talent is 'Buchholz-like' can just be thrown out the window.
Next up we've got the pictures Dirk Hayhurst posted on twitter, now I took a look at these photos and believe yea there is potential that something sinister could be happening, why? Well thats because not only do the pictures show him rubbing something onto his index and middle fingers, and no other parts of the hand, but you can see his left arm 'glistening' and his right arm is fairly dry. Now why does this have any relevance? Well it does because Buchholz and Farrell tried to explain it saying he had rosin on his arm, but rosin is a white substance that is supposed to absorb and prevent the development of moisture, not create it. So it seems a bit fishy that his left arm would be fairly wet looking and his right being dry. Though I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist because this is all conjecture, there is no absolute proof and it could be explained I mean if Buchholz said, 'Oh I was wiping my forehead on my left arm between innings', that would be a logical counter argument.
In addition to this most sites covering this issue have specifically called what they believed Buchholz could have been throwing as a spitball (not a shineball or emery ball) and from what I know about spitballs the substance that is applied to the ball is supposed to disturb the usual wind flow around the ball giving it more multi-directional movement. Now I obviously can't see every direction a ball breaks on a computer screen but Buchholz's movement on his pitches didn't seem to out there or over the top, which is what we'd expect of a spitball. Now again this has to be taken with a grain of salt because I don't know how much additional movement can be attributed to a foreign substance (even a little can make a difference). So this argument is one that has to be more closely looked at before anyone can make a sound judgement on this incident, and it doesn't hurt that ex-starting pitcher/closer and hall of famer Dennis Eckersley came to his defence as Dennis knows just as much, if not a tad more than Hayhurst and Morris (though thats in my opinion because he performed great at both starter and closer positions).
Finally we have Buchholz's 'strange behaviour' now this is a tad more subtle and will likely make me sound a bit like one of those people who believe 911 was some giant government conspiracy. Anyhow what I'm sure many baseball fans know is that there is a rosin bag on the mound that every pitcher can use to get a better grip on the ball and the situation in Toronto had the bag present and the dome was closed so the bag would not be wet or useless. This of course begs the question, why even bother putting some on your arm if you've got a bag of it to use right behind you?
So my final thoughts on this are that everyone needs to look at this objectively, I know Red Sox fans are going to stand by Buchholz for better or worse and I'm sure there will be a contingent of Jays fans up in arms, but the evidence for this is somewhat solid in areas and very flaky in others. Overall someone really needs to sit down and analyze everything before anyone, including myself, MLB, sportswriters or any fans should make any definitive judgements on Buchholz or the people who brought up the allegations (Jack Morris and Dirk Hayhurst). In addition if your interested in this whole debacle then I suggest reading up on these articles on Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report and ESPN
-Eric
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