Pawtucket: The Philadelphia of Rhode Island

that he cannot believe it!

If you watch that whole interview, you'll find what you feared you'd find: a reporter asking leading questions and an athlete trying to be accommodating, give a good interview & advocate for himself.

Giardi says "everyone wants to know, Clay, do you feel like you've done all you can do here & that you should be headed up there" ... "is it frustrating being like: I feel like I'm ready & this time I'll succeed" ... he tells Buchholz that some people say he's "cocky" and "immature"...

Clay talks about facing adversity, disapointing last year, realizing he doesn't have it all figured out, the return to the minors helped him, that he came into spring training in the right mindset (just pitch & things will work out the way they're supposed to)...

in short, he sounds as if he's mature, focused and ready to succeed.

I'll bet people were upset about two things: he talks at a couple of points about wanting to be in the majors even if it's with another team. There are better ways to answer this question. He also says the team always seems to find a way to solve pitching problems without him; that's sulky & melodramatic... if that's how you're expecting this kid to sound, which brings us back to Mike Giardi.

Giardi knows the logjam to which Buch refers consists of Matsuzaka, Penny, and Smoltz, who have won a lot more games in MLB than he has. He can not sound like he expects to pass them automatically, or knee-jerk fans will take him down a notch. Giardi sets up a tension with his questions and leads Buchholz right into it. One hopes that Buchholz will not overreact as some do & refuse to answer questions at all for a while.