Last night at Fenway Park, Clay Buchholz threw the first real shutout of Fenway’s 100th anniversary season. It was the third shutout thrown by the staff but you aficionados know what I’m talking about when I say it was a real one. Buchholz finished the game! That’s right folks he went the distance, nine whole innings, a complete game shutout!

The Red Sox jumped out 2-0 in the first inning and never looked back winning 7-0 and once again getting them over .500.

It was the third complete game of Buchholz’s career, all shutouts and all against the Orioles.

Buchholz no hit the Orioles at Fenway Park September 1, 2007, his first complete game shutout of his career.

The first shutout in Fenway Park history was pitched by “Smokey Joe Wood” and it came against the White Sox.

Wood squared off against Big Ed Walsh of Chicago and won 2-0 for Fenway Parks first shutout.

It occurred on May 20th of 1912 and it came in the 27th game of the season. It was the first of 10 shutouts he would throw in Fenway Park’s inaugural season and it set a Sox record, a record he still holds.

Two of Wood’s 1912 shutouts came against the Senators and both times he bested Walter Johnson, once, this 1-0 duel at Fenway Park on September 6th.

The Red Sox staff of 1912 hurled 18 shutouts in Fenway Park’s first season, all of them, of course, of the complete game variety. But that was really no big deal for 108 of the Red Sox 154 games that season were complete games. Six of Joe Wood’s 10 shutouts came at Fenway. Twice he threw goose eggs against the White Sox, both at Fenway. Twice he got the aforementioned Senators, once in Washington and once at Fenway. He blanked the Tigers once, at Fenway, the St. Louis Browns twice, once home and once away. His favorite whitewash target was the Yankees as he shut them out three times, twice at Fenway and once in New York!

Ray Collins fired four shutouts in 1912.

Collins was the first southpaw to hurl a Fenway Park shutout and that came on July 19th and it was also against the White Sox. Two of them came at home. Buck O’Brien (Fenways first ever starter) and Charlie “Sea Lion” Hall each threw a pair of shutouts in 1912, one each at home.

The Red Sox fired 18 shutouts in their inaugural season of 1912, 10 at Fenway Park. To gain some perspective and really see how much the game has changed, let’s take a look back at the last 18 Red Sox shutouts and the last 10 at Fenway Park.

Believe it or not you have to go all the way back to 1998 to begin counting. We have to reach back 14 seasons to add up 18 complete game shutout wins by Red Sox pitchers and 10 at Fenway. Both take us back to the 1998 season. Four of them were no-hitters! One was a no-hot bid by Curt Schilling when he shook off Varitek with two outs in the eighth in Oakland and another was a Josh Beckett one hitter in Tropicana Field last year! And there was yet another one hitter tossed by Pedro at the Trop in August of 2004, his last shutout with the Sox, a 17 strikeout effort!

Pedro fired eight shutouts for the Red Sox from 1998 through 2004, five of them at Fenway Park.

In four seasons from 2003 through 2006 the Red Sox pitching staff completed only one shutout, Pedro in ’04’.

The nature of the game has changed dramatically and, for the most part, a pitcher only completes a game when something exceptional is taking place. An attempt at a no-hitter, or an otherwise, low hit, high strikeout game in progress.

There were 37,307 patrons at Fenway Park last night and I’m not sure how many of them left knowing they had witnessed what has become a Fenway rarity, a Red Sox complete game shutout. It was the first of Fenway Park’s second century and it’s first since July 12, 2009 when Josh Beckett three hit the Kansas City Royals.

Clay Buchholz threw a complete game shutout last night, it was the third complete game shutout of his career. In 1912, “Smokey” Joe threw three in a span of 16 days!

And so it is on this day in Fenway Park history, June 8, 2012.