Walker Buehler made his second start off the 15-day injured list on Tuesday and again struggled with inconsistency in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 6-3 comeback win over the Seattle Mariners.
The right-hander immediately put the team in a deficit when he allowed a two-out, two-run single to Jorge Polanco in the first inning. Buehler later gave up an RBI double to Polanco in the third that extended the Mariners’ lead to 3-0.
The 30-year-old bounced back with a scoreless fourth inning to end his outing. He walked three batters and only had one strikeout due to being unable to put away batters.
“Yeah, in general, getting 0-2 is kind of a weird victory for me right now,” Buehler said.
“But, you know, I felt like I was kind of 0-2 or 2-0 the whole night. Made a couple bad pitches. Polanco got me twice and it was tough when he doesn’t come off the heater and try to throw kind of the front hip two-seamer and he kind of smother-hooked it and hit it hard for two in the first.
“I’m so tired of saying that I feel closer. But I kind of explained to people I felt like a bad version of myself in ’21 and I think that’s as close as I’ve felt to kind of me of old as I’ve I felt this year.
“I didn’t throw the ball well, and our team really helped me out and got us back into the game. And I don’t want to sound too optimistic about it, kind of because of the results. But you know, I came out of that one feeling pretty good about where I’m at and what we’ve done this week in terms of the delivery.
“And now it’s, I’ve been saying this, ‘I got to perform, and I got to perform,’ but I feel like I can actually perform now. And I’m going to have five, six days to throw and feel the same thing that I’ve been feeling the past three or four days. I feel better about it.
“And I think also this is the power of being on a team like this, right? I can throw the ball not great, we get their guy out of there quickly, and kind of chip away at it and then explode. And we got guys off the bench that are veteran players and really prepared, and J-Hey hits a big homer and wins us the game.
“So, yeah, it sucks, it’s hard to say keep sticking with me, but I feel a lot better about it. And obviously it’s nice not to lose every game that I start.”
Buehler, who missed nearly two months due to right hip inflammation, believes his outing against the Mariners could be a building block for his next start.
“I mean, before I had the hip thing, honestly, I felt very, kind of hopeless in terms of the way my delivery was working, and felt like a very lost year for me,” he explained.
“And I think not so much in Milwaukee, but the bullpen in St. Louis and then today have kind of given me, at least mentally, some, hope is too desperate of a word, but I feel a lot better about the way that I am able to throw the baseball.
“And now I got to go get results and all that stuff. But hopefully I get a couple more starts to figure it out and get kind of that confidence built back up. But I think I feel better about tonight than the line would suggest, and it’s been a long time since I felt that way.”
Walker Buehler finding delivery
Buehler clarified that his delivery is getting closer to where he wants it to be. “I don’t want to get too technical, just because it is what it is, but there’s some things that you have to do in delivery,” he began.
“I haven’t been drifting down the mound at all. I haven’t gotten any forward move, and I’ve just kind of been stuck. And when you’re stuck, all that weight transfers, and your hand can kind of go anywhere. And tonight I felt like I actually got out forward and sort of moving a little quicker, which puts my hand in a lot closer, a lot more similar position more often.
“And to me tonight, the misses, if I missed by two feet to the left, my hand told me that I had missed by two feet to the left. It wasn’t kind of this weird mystery that I’ve been dealing with for a long time, and everything just made a lot more sense.
“And I wish I would have performed better in saying that, but it just felt a lot more like how I know how to pick up my leg and throw a baseball.”
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