First win gives Red Sox starter Clay Buchholz something to build on

1:14 AM ET

CHICAGO — Wednesday night’s win for the Boston Red Sox wasn’t just a case of the Sox getting off the schneid against opposing southpaws on the season, and it wasn’t just about a needed dose of Papi power when David Ortiz jacked a Carlos Rodon fastball to right field to give Boston a lead. Perhaps the biggest deal was getting a quality start from veteran right-hander Clay Buchholz as he notched his first win of the season and the Red Sox won for the first time in a Buchholz start in 2016.

It didn’t initially look as though it would be a good turn for Buchholz after he gave up a first-inning, two-run home run to White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu. On a warmer night than this without a stiff wind to right field, that might have been the second homer in the inning, as ChiSox leadoff man Adam Eaton hit a long drive to left that came up short of the fence. In the second inning, Buchholz pitched into trouble again, putting two men on before escaping with an inning-ending double play.

“I think the biggest thing, after the second inning, in what could have been a little bit of a rocky inning, he didn’t back away from it, and he kept coming and settled into a very good rhythm,” manager John Farrell observed after Boston’s 5-2 victory.

That’s because from that point forward, Buchholz regrouped and was dominant his second and third times through the White Sox batting order, retiring 15 of the next 16 batters. Buchholz finally notched his first one-two-three inning in the third. He still was far from perfect, getting behind with first-pitch balls on six out of seven batters faced in the third and fourth innings, but he finally settled into a groove in the fifth.

A big part of Buchholz’s success was breaking with some patterns he’d fallen into, moving away from being “too fine,” as Farrell had …

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