It’s maddening as hell.

Watching Clay Buchholz these last few months has been like watching your 7-year-old son, the one with the IQ of 127 and an affinity for taking computers apart and putting them back together, get pulled out of the “normal kids” class for biting girls on their ankles and drawing pictures of dead bodies.

That is what we are seeing here. A child, one who is obviously gifted, struggling to adapt to his current environment.  So, the Red Sox treated him as such, sending him as far away from Boston as they could.

Clay Buchholz, 1 year removed from throwing a no-hitter, has been demoted to AA Portland after losing yet another game last night.

In 286 minor league innings before this season, Clay had issued 87 walks and 21 HRs in 286 innings of work.  This is an average of 2.74 walks and 0.66 HRs per game.  This season in Boston, his walk and HR rates have both nearly doubled, to 4.86 and 1.30 respectively.  Obviously, a young pitcher will naturally give up more walks and home runs against tougher hitting in the Major Leagues, but an increase this drastic is atypical.   Anyone who has watched him this season can tell you that his stuff is not an issue, but his location has been piss poor.

So, what on earth is wrong with him?