Throughout the season the Los Angeles Dodgers front office and manager Dave Roberts regularly raved about and praised Walker Buehler for being wise beyond his years. They entrusted him in key series down the stretch and gave him the ball with the National League West on the line.
Come the postseason, Buehler has slotted third in the rotation for both the NL Division Series and Championship Series. He didn’t pitch poorly in either outing, but also hasn’t quite matched the prolific efforts seen in his starts during the regular season.
“I felt better with tonight,” Buehler answered when asked about his two postseason games. “Obviously, the result isn’t what you want but up until the seventh inning, I felt pretty good about it.
“I think my stuff’s been pretty good in both games. It’s the playoffs, it’s heightened, every mistake you can see. I’ve got to be better.”
Two of the four runs Buehler allowed over seven innings were in some regard self-inflicted. Christian Yelich walked in the first inning and promptly scored on Ryan Braun’s double. Travis Shaw tripled with two outs in the sixth and scored on a wild pitch.
Yasmani Grandal wore the brunt of the blame for allowing the spiked curveball to get away, but Buehler attempted to put responsibility on himself.
The Brewers’ final damage came on Orlando Arcia’s two-run home run in the seventh inning. It was more of a fly ball but got carried by the wind over the short fence in right field. “I prefer to make a better 2-0 pitch to Shaw, a better pitch to Braun in the first,” Buehler said.
“The Arcia one I’m not going to dwell on. It’s 97 up and away, he put a Major League swing on it. Things to take from it, but at the same time I’m OK with how I threw the ball. I just wish I would’ve gotten better results.”
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts felt his rookie struggled with throwing his curveball for strike. Roberts agreed the pitch to Arcia wasn’t one Buehler should kick himself over. “I still thought the stuff was coming out well,” Roberts added.
No matter how it was cut, Buehler felt he failed in one key area. “At the end of the day I didn’t put us in a position to win,” he lamented.
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