Clay Buchholz Returns Against Fellow All-Star Hisashi Iwakuma

The Red Sox have one game remaining on the West Coast portion of their 10-game road trip, and so far the results have not been pretty: a 1-5 record while being outscored 18-36.

It will be a matchup of 2013 AL All Stars on Wednesday, the Sox’ final game of the season in Seattle, although two who are having remarkably different 2014 campaigns.

Clay Buchholz, recently activated from a nearly month-long DL stint, gets the ball for the Red Sox in his first start since May 26. He’s 2-4 in 10 starts for the Sox this season with a 7.02 ERA. His last major league action came against the Atlanta Braves almost a month ago, when he went three innings, allowing six runs on four hits with an absurd eight walks before he was pulled from the game.

Buchholz has started against the Mariners three times in his career, going 1-1 with a 3.26 ERA. He struck out eight batters over seven innings, while allowing three earned runs the last time he saw them on Sept. 3, 2012. As expected, former Yankee Robinson Cano has faced Buchholz the most times in his career, going 12-for-32 with a walk. No other Mariner in Wednesday’s lineup has seen him more than 10 times, although Logan Morrison has four hits in six career at bats against Buchholz.
Hisashi Iwakuma will start for the M’s on Wednesday, having a solid season with a 5-3 record and an ERA of 3.04 in 10 starts. He struggle his last time out, however, allowing five runs on nine hits over five frames to the Kansas City Royals.
Iwakuma has started two career games against the Red Sox, both coming last season; he gave up seven earned runs over 8 2/3 innings in those starts. A.J. Pierzynski is the most familiar Red Sox hitter to the Seattle righthander, going 4-for-12 in his career against him, while Stephen Drew, David Ortiz, and Dustin Pedroia each have two hits in five career at bats versus Iwakuma.