Projo Sox Blog

Click the play button below to hear Sean's comments, recorded this morning. The topics: what to watch for when Clay Buchholz returns to the mound tonight, Jacoby Ellsbury's importance to the Boston offense, Sean Casey's stellar job as backup first baseman, and which pitchers Sean would start he were managing the All-Star teams.

Here are some excerpts from Sean's comments:

Buchholz's rehab work: "There were some mechanical adjustments made in which he was changing his arm slot a little on the fastball, but i think the biggest difference and what they want him to most accomplish is to get back to throwing the fastball more. He is blessed with two secondary pitches, a changeup and curveball, that are both plus pitches, both above average, but I think he had gotten into the habit of kind of forgetting about the fastball and not using it enough, and -- like every other pitcher -- they want him to be throwing the fastball first and working off that, and that's really what that stint in Pawtucket was meant to do, was get back to throwing the fastball without abandoning the other stuff, and we'll see [tonight] how that experiment has gone."

On Casey's .371 batting average: "I think the thing that is most impressive about that is that this is a guy who is used to playing every day, for the most part. The last year and a half, maybe, his playing time went down as he bounced around a little bit ... but this is a guy who was pretty much an everyday first baseman for a long time, and came into this year with a career average of over .300, and when he signed here it was with the understanding obviously, with Kevin Youkilis at first, that he was not going to be an everyday player. They made that clear to him and he understood it. He said he wanted to come and be part of a winner, and it's not an easy thing for a player to learn to come off the bench and pinch-hit, or play once a week, but he's done that, as the average reflects, with remarkable effectiveness."

 Tags  Clay Buchholz Sean Casey Sean McAdam SoxTalk

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