At the start of the fifth inning Monday night, the Yankee Stadium scoreboard implored a quiet crowd in the Bronx.
“EVERYBODY GET LOUD,” it instructed.
“EVERYBODY SCREAM,” it begged.
The subdued 49,368 in attendance hardly reacted.
As he’d done so many times before this time of year, Walker Buehler had already extinguished any belief.
For much of this season — his first back from a second career Tommy John surgery — Buehler looked nothing like his old self. His once-overpowering fastball was getting crushed by opponents. His secondary stuff didn’t have the same life. His mechanics were so out of whack that, during a month-long stint on the injured list in the summer, he went to a private facility in Florida in search of any shred of consistency.
What was supposed to be a final showcase before a long-awaited free agency, instead devolved into a frustrating six-month grind.
October, however, has been a different story. And on Monday night, it culminated in what could be a poetic finish.
In a 4-2 Dodgers win that gave them a three-games-to-none lead in the World Series, Buehler delivered a vintage October gem to put them on the doorstep of a championship.
Five innings. Zero runs. Two hits. Five strikeouts.
All in what might have been his final start with the organization — or the latest reminder of why it should try to retain him.
“This,” teammate Mookie Betts said, “is the real Walker Buehler.”
“Guys like [him],” manager Dave Roberts added, “you can essentially throw away the regular season and know that you’re going to get the best of them in the postseason.”
Now, the Dodgers are hoping they won’t need Buehler again, at least not in this Fall Classic. His next outing in this series wouldn’t come until a potential Game 7. Given the way the first three contests have gone, even a fifth game is starting to look unnecessary.
“I’m excited to watch our guys go tomorrow and see what happens,” Buehler said, with the Dodgers planning a bullpen game in Tuesday’s Game 4. “I’ll be ready if there’s a Game 7. But my hope is that I don’t have to throw anymore.”
Added Roberts: “I just don’t want to let these guys up for air.”
On Monday, the Dodgers knocked Buehler’s counterpart, Yankees right-hander Clarke Schmidt, out of the game early, in what was the latest example of their unexpected starting rotation advantage in this matchup.
Freddie Freeman hit a two-run home run in the first, answering chants from the right-field bleachers of “F— you Freddie!” by hitting his third home run of the series straight to them.
The Dodgers scored again in the third, when Tommy Edman drew a leadoff walk, took second base on a hit-and-run play with Shohei Ohtani (who was back in the lineup despite his partially dislocated left shoulder), and perfectly read Betts’ bloop single to right to score without a throw.
From there, it was up to Buehler to protect a 3-0 lead.
“As kind of brutal as it is to say, it takes that adrenaline and stuff to kind of really get me going mentally,” Buehler said of pitching in the playoffs, and the World Series especially.
“That feeling of, ‘There’s an organization relying on me today to win a playoff game,’ I think it’s kind of the weight that I like feeling and gets me in a certain place mentally that is kind of hard to replicate.”
Buehler certainly didn’t replicate it for much of the regular season, when he suffered a 1-6 record and 5.38 ERA — close to double his previous career mark of 3.02.
Things weren’t much better in Buehler’s first start of the playoffs, when poor defense and a few misplaced fastballs contributed to a six-run, second-inning disaster in Game 3 of the National League Division Series — a loss that moved the Dodgers to the brink of another early elimination.
Ever since then, though, Buehler has rediscovered his typical playoff dominance, having concluded Monday’s game on a 12-inning scoreless streak.
For a 30-year-old veteran who said his reputation as a big game pitcher is “kind of the only thing I care about,” his status as such has only further been cemented.
“He can have a 10 [ERA] during the regular season, but come October he’s going to show up,” said utilityman Kiké Hernández, another player familiar with postseason excellence.
“I don’t think you should be surprised in a big game that Walker Buehler shows up and does what he does,” second baseman Gavin Lux added.
On Monday, Buehler’s once-diminished fastball looked lively and sharp, resulting in five whiffs on eight attempted swings even while averaging less than 95 mph.
An array of curveballs, cutters and sinkers complemented the heater to effect, helping Buehler hold the Yankees hitless over the first three innings while the Dodgers surged in front.
“To get through the playoffs in the way that I have, it’s really encouraging for me personally,” Buehler said. “Because I know it’s in there, and I’ve just got to unlock it a little bit.”
Buehler did encounter trouble in the fourth. Giancarlo Stanton lined a one-out double to left. A diving catch by Betts in the next at-bat likely saved a run. With two outs, Anthony Volpe then poked a single to left. But outfielder Teoscar Hernández fielded it and quickly fired home, throwing out the slow-running Stanton with the help of a lightning-quick tag by catcher Will Smith.
Buehler then concluded his night with a clean fifth inning, turning the game over to a bullpen that didn’t yield a run until Alex Verdugo’s two-run homer off Michael Kopech with two outs in the ninth.
“Tonight I thought his stuff was as good as it’s been all year,” Roberts said of Buehler. “Just the confidence when he’s on the mound in the postseason, there hasn’t been many better.”
In three career World Series starts, Buehler has now given up just one run in 18 total innings. Over 18 career postseason outings, his ERA is a sterling 3.07.
It’s the kind of production that should help the right-hander as a free agent this winter, despite his lackluster regular season. Whether it tempts the Dodgers to bring him back — via either a one-year, $21 million qualifying offer Buehler would have the option to accept, or a new contract entirely — remains to be seen.
Entering this series, Buehler said he hadn’t thought much about his looming free agency, noting that while it “sucks” he struggled so much in his contract year, simply “not being very good sucks more.”
The idea of this being his last run with the Dodgers hadn’t distracted him much either, he insisted, keeping such sentimental subplots out of mind as he prepared for Game 3.
“If it is [my last start as a Dodger],” he said last week, “it’s certainly going to be me trying to win a ballgame in the World Series, more than anything sad or kind of weird in that way.”
Buehler knows this winter won’t be like he once imagined, back when the two-time All-Star seemed so poised to cash in on the open market, he reportedly turned down a lucrative contract extension offer from the Dodgers before the 2021 season.
“Once I had my second surgery, I don’t think I was under any illusion that I was gonna go sign a $350 million contract,” Buehler said last week. “I’m very happy to be a Los Angeles Dodger, and I would love to stay here for as long as they’ll have me. But I think in the past couple months, I’ve kind of built my confidence up a little bit to the point that there’ll be some teams that would want me. I feel like a major league starting pitcher, whether it’s here or elsewhere.”
On Monday night, Buehler only further solidified that belief — providing a potentially fitting ending to his Dodgers tenure, if not another reason for the club to ensure he remains in Los Angeles beyond this season.
“There’s no better way to go out if I do, or to come back,” he said, “than after hopefully a World Series.”
