"It'd be like two servings of pasta with marinara sauce, either hamburger, steak, chicken," Bowden said. "There's going to be salad in there, there's going to be vegetables in there, there's going to be fruit in there, some type of fat, like avocado or something like that. It was quite a bit. And right before that, we had an 800-calorie protein shake. It was huge.
"We were still full from the protein shake, and they expect us to eat all that food? We did our best, but sometimes we couldn't put it all down, and I'm notorious for eating quite a bit of food."
Bowden, one of the Red Sox' promising minor league pitchers, ranked No. 94 among Baseball America's top 100 prospects, was driving to a gym in Chicago when his cellphone rang in early October. On the line was Mike Hazen, the Red Sox director of player development, asking him his plans for the next six weeks. Bowden paused, knowing what might be coming. Or knowing, at least, that any plans he had made just might need to be canceled.
So, after a brief delay because of teammate Justin Masterson's wedding in South Bend, Ind., Bowden took off for Pensacola in early November, heading for a shared apartment with Buchholz and a whole lot of food.
"Just highlighting a few of the physical things that we have stressed with him since he signed, most notably from a stretching standpoint," Hazen said, explaining why Bowden was sent to API. He's more of a tighter-wound pitcher. That's just who he is physiologically. We just felt like having that dedicated strength and conditioning for six weeks was worth for us the investment to make."
The team has done similar things with Jacoby Ellsbury, Kevin Youkilis, and Dustin Pedroia, sending them to facilities to make sure they work on specific things in the offseason.
