Bowden

COLUMBUS, Ohio — During the final two-plus innings of his first Triple-A start last night in Cooper Stadium, Michael Bowden flashed some of the velocity and location that has made him one of the Red Sox’ top prospects.

He settled down after a leadoff double to Roger Bernadina in the third and a two-out double to Pokey Reese in the fourth and posted three of his four strikeouts over his final two-plus innings. It was the beginning that left Bowden with a sour taste in his mouth.

He gave up hits to the first three batters he faced, with two of the runners scoring, and allowed a run after giving up a leadoff ground-rule double in the second.

“Obviously I’m not very happy with it,” Bowden said. “I was falling behind on almost every count and they were capitalizing. I was excited and I did have a little bit of adrenaline, but I’ve felt that before and that shouldn’t have affected me negatively. There might have been a spurt toward the end when I was pitching well, but I was just very hard on myself tonight.”

While giving up three earned runs, Bowden allowed seven hits but walked none and struck out four. Jorge Padilla and Bernadina opened with singles and Luis Jimenez doubled to give Columbus a 2-0 lead. Leonard Davis doubled to begin the second and later scored on a groundout.

Bowden allowed a double to Padilla to open the fifth and was then relieved by Michael Tejera.

Long at-bats by Reese and Ed Rogers in the fourth got Bowden’s pitch count to 77, and manager Ron Johnson pulled the plug on his outing after a seven-pitch at-bat to open the fifth by Padilla.

There were enough positives from Bowden’s outing to leave Johnson looking forward to another outing by the 21-year-old.

“It was pretty exciting watching Mr. Bowden get his first start,” Johnson said. “I just watched some of his pitches and this is a young man that didn’t walk anybody. He gave up three runs on seven hits in four innings and I’m sure he’s not happy with that. But that isn’t what lost us the game. He got his first Triple-A start out of the way. This is about development. Even though he gave up three runs, I thought he pitched efficiently the first three innings before a couple of their veterans hit a lot of foul balls.”