Every time he took the mound in late June and early July, Clay Buchholz wondered whether this would be the last time he pitched with the Red Sox. When Buchholz didn't take the mound for 19 days in July, he resigned himself to the idea of not pitching again for Boston.

The Red Sox are glad they didn't cut bait.

With both Steven Wright and Eduardo Rodriguez currently on the shelf with injuries, Buchholz has been a godsend for the starting rotation, his six innings Thursday providing Boston with "a shot in the arm," according to manager John Farrell.

"There was a lot of clamoring for quite a bit of time about Clay. We've always felt and maintained that there's a talented guy here," Farrell said Sunday." Yeah, he needed work, he needed to gain some consistency and gain some confidence. That's playing out now."

The biggest change for Buchholz over the last month or so has been to his arm-slot. With the assistance of director of pitching development Brian Bannister, Buchholz realized in July that his arm-slot had lowered dramatically since his career year in 2013, likely due to the injuries he's sustained since then. The lower arm-slot meant pitches that used to break down were now moving more horizontally, and they were getting hit much harder.

"When he loses angle, the two-seamer becomes less effective. It just doesn't have the same sink on it; it has more run. That's what he was getting beat on early in the season," Bannister explained. "To be able to throw it, he just has to stay on top of it more and create a better angle. That's been the focus recently."

This is precisely why Bannister is now traveling with the major-league team. Instead of just telling Buchholz he had lost his arm-slot, he could show him the objective data charting its drop over the years.

"When you combine hard, fast data to some of the thoughts that a pitcher is encountering on the mound, it's more of an objective view," Farrell said of Bannister's contributions.

Buchholz has worked to bring that arm-slot gradually back up, closer to where it was in 2013. He's been able to do that more consistently out of the stretch, and that's why he decided to go with it from the very beginning of his start on Thursday.

"[The arm-slot] is still fluctuating, and that's one of the reasons I went back to the stretch," Buchholz said. "I was talking to Banny and he said that out of the windup, I was doing something for [the arm-slot] to go down a little bit. Out of the stretch, it's just more compact and there's not a whole lot of movement.

"I'm able to get on top of the ball on a little bit more frequent basis rather than once every three or four pitches. That's why I'm doing that whole stretch thing right now."

"What he had done out of the pen, he had made a lot of progress. It was trying to make sure that he maintained that same progress," said Bannister. "His pace slowed down a little bit out of the windup, he was underneath the ball a little bit. I thought he did a really good job of creating a nice down angle [Thursday], keeping the ball on the ground, throwing some nice sequences."

It was Buchholz's fastball, in particular, that was getting hit hard earlier this season. Through his start on July 2 against the Angels, Buchholz was allowing opponents a .341 average and .690 slugging percentage on his two- and four-seam fastballs. Since then, opposing hitters have three singles in 34 at-bats against those two pitches.

"Making sure the fastball was at least an average pitch results-wise and then leveraging the secondary pitches is important for him — to be able to throw his plus changeup with down angle, be able to leverage his curveball a little bit more, leverage his cutter with some depth and some run on it," said Bannister. "Trying to get all his pitches more crisp and get them all closer to an ideal shape while not getting beat on the fastball was the overall vision. He's been executing."

Obviously, Buchholz is far from a finished product. Bannister mentioned the need to increase his strikeout rate and continue to reduce his walk rate. But the Red Sox are intrigued not only by what Buchholz has brought to the rotation as a fill-in, but also what he might be capable of in the bullpen if and when he moves back to that role.

"I understand how this season has gone for me in general. I feel like I'm in a little bit better place right now," Buchholz said. "I'll do whatever they want me to do. That's what I get paid to do."

"That history may have some peaks and valleys to it," said Farrell, "but when you're on the peak side of it, it's as good as we can find."