Red Sox Pitcher Earns Dubious Honor From MLB Writer After First Half

Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Walker Buehler had one of his stronger outings of the 2025 season on Thursday night, completing six innings while allowing three runs on five hits and three walks with two strikeouts in the team’s 4-3 win against the Tampa Bay Rays.

The numbers don’t jump off the page, but Buehler’s performance represented his first quality start (at least six innings pitched with three earned runs or fewer allowed) since June 11, just his second such outing since the calendar turned to May and only his fifth quality start in 16 games this season. It was progress, as the right-hander limited the damage and kept the Red Sox in the game.

Still, it wasn’t enough to get Buehler off the hook from MLB writer Jayson Stark of The Athletic’s MLB midseason awards, as the 30-year-old “earned” the “AL Cy Yuk” award on Friday.

Stark revealed his annual honors for the first half of the 2025 campaign, with fellow Boston starter Garrett Crochet, notably, earning a top five spot on the scribe’s AL Cy Young ballot.

After signing a one-year, $21.05 million contract with the Red Sox in December, Buehler started his career in Beantown on March 29 against the Texas Rangers, picking up a loss after surrendering four runs on seven hits over 4 1/3 innings. The two-time All-Star had a strong April, going 4-0 and allowing 12 runs (all earned) on 25 hits and nine walks with 26 strikeouts but faltered in May and June.

Overall, Buehler enters Friday with a 6-6 record, 6.12 ERA and 1.56 WHIP, while giving up 87 hits, 17 home runs and 35 walks across 78 innings (16 starts). Buehler also has 63 strikeouts and has already recorded a career-high eight hit batsmen.

“It was only nine months ago that Walker Buehler was an official World Series hero, which was a cool way to say farewell to the only team he’d ever pitched for, the Dodgers. But life on the other side of World Series parties comes with no guarantees of future performance. And Boston could tell you all about that,” Stark wrote. “The Red Sox must have forgotten to send me their internal projections on the kind of season they thought they’d be getting when they signed Buehler for a cool $21.05 million, on a one-year guarantee. But I’m going to use my vivid imagination and say: I’m exceedingly confident they didn’t project this.”

Stark noted that Buehler’s ERA is the highest of any AL starting pitcher who’s pitched at least 78 innings, while his .856 opponents OPS is also the highest of any starter in the junior circuit.

The 2015 first-round pick isn’t expected to pitch again before next week’s All-Star break, so he’ll look to regroup during the time off before taking the mound again.