When Clay Buchholz threw his no-hitter Sept. 1 against the Orioles, he tried as hard as he could not to pay attention to the outs. He didn't want to fall out of rhythm or break his concentration. He was much more cognizant of what was going on last night, when he was on the opposite side of John Lackey's no-hit bid.

But he is aware he isn't having the sort of results he keeps anticipating. Not the results he had in his brief appearance last season, or the ones in his recent stint at Triple A Pawtucket.

"It's tough to learn the way that I've been learning this year," Buchholz said after a 6-2 loss to the Angels, his third setback in four starts since his recall this month. "I had my pitches working, had everything working. Felt like velocity was good, thought I missed a spot in location with the home run, but other than that, they sort of put the ball where they had to put it in key situations."