FORT MYERS, Fla. -- With T-shirts of his own creation, Clay Buchholz made a fashion statement in the Red Sox clubhouse Thursday afternoon, one that will be modeled by the five members of the team’s reconstructed starting rotation.

Buchholz placed a blue T-shirt in each starter’s locker that bore the inscription “He’s the ace” on the front and the pitcher’s name on the back. He also had another T-shirt made up, a gray one, that said, “I’m the ace” and will be worn by that game’s pitcher. It was an original way for Buchholz to weigh in on one of this spring’s prevailing themes -- that the Sox rotation lacks a true No. 1.

“It was awesome,” said Joe Kelly, who started Thursday night and found the T-shirt waiting when he arrived.

“It was something he talked about he was going to do, and all of a sudden it showed up in my locker.

“I don’t know why they cut the sleeves off all of them. That's something [Rick] Porcello likes, I guess. He’s a big sleeveless guy. I don’t have big arms, so I don’t really want to wear no-sleeve shirts, but they all wanted to do it, so I did.”

As for the message?

“It’s cool,” he said. “I like it. We’re all pulling for each other. I like where his head is at and where our heads are at as a group. It’s pretty cool to see how we’ve bonded just from little things on and off the field. It already seems like we’ve been playing with these guys ever since I’ve been drafted.

“For Buchholz to go out of his way and step up as a leader, I like that. It was, ‘Hey, this is what we’re going to wear.’ Everyone said, ‘OK, we’re going to wear them.’”

Said manager John Farrell: “Maybe it’s a way there’s some motivation or some positive direction taken from the reminders that are seemingly there every day.”