If 5 innings where he threw roughly 90% fastballs, a healthy Bartolo Colon earned the victory in his 2008 MLB debut against the Kansas City Royals last night. Colon’s strength has always been fastball location, and that strength was visible in his outing.

Colon was around 94 MPH with his four-seam fastballs, and the hardest hit ball against him came on a hanging breaking pitch. While the team was expecting to cap him at 75 pitches last night (he threw 74), he’ll have a limit of around 85 or 90 next time out according to pitching coach John Farrell.

Whither Clay Buchholz?

Well, with the emergence of Bartolo Colon, it is all but guaranteed that Clay’s next pitches will be thrown in a Pawtucket Red Sox uniform, along with another guy who has been impressive at the MLB level: fellow prospect Justin Masterson.

The 2008 Boston Red Sox are beginning to have a problem. A “good” problem. Each of these 8 starting pitchers could be ready to provide innings at the major league level in the second half of this season:

Josh Beckett
Daisuke Matsuzaka
Jon Lester
Tim Wakefield
Bartolo Colon
Clay Buchholz
Justin Masterson
Curt Schilling in August?

With injuries, these issues tend to take care of themselves to some degree. If Colon remains healthy and Curt Schilling progresses as he expects, Buchholz and Masterson are probably the odd guys out and will spend the bulk of 2008 in AAA for development purposes.

However, pitching depth is an extremely valuable commodity in modern baseball, and it appears that the Red Sox have plenty of it right now.

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