It may have looked like Clay Buchholz, the kid from East Texas who became the first Red Sox rookie to throw a no-hitter, was crying in the midst of the red-and-white scrum that engulfed him after he struck out Baltimore's Nick Markakis looking to make history last night.
But those weren't tears of joy, he said.
"David Ortiz was jumping up and down and hit me in the nose with his shoulder and my eyes started watering," he said. "I thought I had a bloody nose."
Fifteen days after making his major league debut against the Angels in the first game of a day-night doubleheader, a day that began with manager Terry Francona telling a sleepy morning assemblage of reporters that "[it] doesn't matter if he throws a no-hitter, he's going back down," 23-year-old Clay D. Buchholz made Francona an accidental prophet of sorts with the 17th no-hitter in franchise history and 20th by a rookie in major league history in a 10-0 win over the Orioles.
"I think that's about as nervous and excited as a lot of us have been in a long time," said Francona, who could have been speaking for the sellout crowd of 36,819 that made the rafters of old Fens vibrate with sound while Buchholz's teammates hung on the dugout railing until umpire Joe West signaled that the 115th pitch from Buchholz, a backup curveball, was strike three on Markakis.
"He kind of delayed the call a little bit," said another rookie, second baseman Dustin Pedroia, whose sprawling stop of Miguel Tejada's seventh-inning grounder past the mound was a no-no saver and destined to appear on highlight reels for years to come. "I started running, then stopped. I wondered what was going on."
Buchholz thought his no-hitter was lost when Tejada's ball went past him to start the seventh. "When I jumped up and missed that ball, I was thinking, 'Well, it's over,' and then [Pedroia] comes out of nowhere," Buchholz said. "I knew that something was meant to happen tonight. I mean, everything had to work out and it did."
Coco Crisp ran down two line drives by Corey Patterson, one in the sixth when he was in right-center and caught up with it in left-center, then again for the second out in the ninth, after Brian Roberts had struck out to start the inning. After walking the first two batters in the fourth, prompting a visit from pitching coach John Farrell, Buchholz set down the minimum number of Orioles.
"I nicked a ball tonight," said Orioles designated hitter Kevin Millar, the former Sox icon. "I nicked one ball. Tonight, this guy threw a great game. He had his stuff, man. He had a great changeup and his fastball was in some nice locations. It was just one of those nights. We got no-hit. You tip your hat to Clay Buchholz and you move forward.
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