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Walker Buehler‘s regular season couldn’t have gone much worse following a return from Tommy John surgery, but on Wednesday night, he looked like his old self.
The 30-year-old Buehler, who was once probably considered the ace of this Los Angeles Dodgers staff, sans Clayton Kershaw, pitched to a career-worst 5.38 ERA in 16 starts this year.
With other injuries to the Dodgers rotation, including Kerhsaw, Buehler was tabbed as a starter almost out of necessity.
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His first postseason start was a microcosm of his regular season: bad. He allowed six earned runs in five innings against the San Diego Padres in what could have been his final outing of the season.
But L.A. won that series in five games, and the Dodgers tabbed Buehler as their starter for Game 3 of the NLCS.
Short of pitch count and innings, he did not disappoint. He struck out Francisco Lindor with the bases loaded in the second inning, and was able to grind out four scoreless frames, even if it took him 90 pitches.
From where he’s been this entire season, and even as recently as just last week, manager Dave Roberts is quite impressed with Buehler’s turnaround.
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“He’s sort of had to reinvent himself, and I say that in a complementary way. Obviously, this year was very rocky trying to get back from a really major surgery,” Roberts said after Game 3 of the NLCS against the New York Mets, which the Dodgers won, 8-0.
“The other part of it is it’s easy to ride when the wind’s at your back… but when there’s adversity, you lose confidence, to then reset, comeback, and still stick it out. That’s something for me that I don’t think he ever had to do. You look at June or July, I don’t think anybody could have seen him in this position right now, so that’s a credit to Walker.”
Walker himself shied away from saying he felt any additional pressure after that dismal start against the Padres — “pressure is a privilege,” he said.
“I don’t think pressure’s the right word. It’s so overused… I’ve gotten to do this a lot of times. These games certainly get me excited, they don’t overwhelm me like they used to when I was younger,” he added.
Buehler is now in line to pitch a potential Game 7, and although he would like to go longer than four innings, he surely has a much sweeter feeling right now than he did after his last outing.
Plus, Roberts certainly won’t have any issue with writing his name on that lineup card if he needs to a few days from now.
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