Well, it happened again. Clay Buchholz, the kid who began the season as one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball, suffered through another rough outing last night. Even before the game, Clay was already among the worst 5 starting pitchers in the American League as ranked by WPA (just above Luis Mendoza, Carlos Silva, Livan Hernandez, and Miguel Batista), and with his latest effort his ERA jumps above the illustrious 6.00 plateau.

Now, you are going to hear most folks screaming for him to be demoted to Pawtucket, where he will of course learn how to “get his head on straight”, and “build up confidence”, and “stop wearing so many necklaces” and so on, and so forth. However, with Tim Wakefield hurt and top prospect Michael Bowden likely to take his place, the Red Sox would probably replace Buchholz with one of Devern Hansack and David Pauley from AAA (assuming Bartolo Colon, who pitched 3 innings last night, is not ready to return).

Clay would have 8 regular season starts remaining if he were to stay in the Major League rotation. Would Hansack or Pauley give the Red Sox a better chance to win those 8 games? Would Clay, still the most prized young pitcher in the organization, benefit more from facing AAA hitters in 5 starts or MLB hitters in 8 starts?

Last night was an excellent example of the type of luck Clay has been having of late: few bad decisions combined with bad luck. His stuff was just fine (check out the Pitch FX data from the terrific brooksbaseball.net website), but he allowed some Texas Leaguers at the wrong time, and a few home runs from three of the most prolific home run hitters in the league.

This guy’s performance is going to improve. Or, it should, if were are to put any stock into the law of averages. His K/9 would be third in the American League had he enough innings to qualify, and his xFIP (Expected Fielding Independent Pitching) of 4.03 is better than Jon Lester’s. He’s simply a much better pitcher than his current ERA dictates.

Maybe he could be sent down once Bartolo Colon is ready to return to the rotation in a couple of weeks. Maybe he doesn’t make the postseason roster (God willing). The best move for the organization, at this point, is to leave him where he is.