NEW YORK – It had been 1,109 days since Walker Buehler looked this good.
In Game 3 of the NLCS on Wednesday, the Dodgers starter conjured up 18 swing-and-misses from Mets hitters in just four innings of work, his highest raw total in a single outing since his last start of 2021. More importantly, he and neither does he. neither Los Angeles bullpen gave up a run. The Dodgers, buoyed by a trio of home runs, including a sonic blast from Shohei Ohtani, won 8-0 in defeat.
For Buehler, it was a sparkling return to the top on a chilly evening in the Big Apple.
Once the impenetrable ace of a perennial contender, Buehler is now a different pitcher. Arm injuries robbed him of the better part of three seasons and sapped his once unwavering confidence. He went through a stop-start period in 2024, during which he was away from the team for a month to rehabilitate a bad hip at a private training center.
Buehler steadied the ship somewhat during the long run, but his selection as Los Angeles’ Game 3 playoff starter had as much to do with the team’s infirmary as any clear rebound from the right-hander. In his first postseason start last week against San Diego in the NLDS, he gave up six points in a loss in LA. With the NLCS tied heading into a raucous Citi Field on Wednesday, the Dodgers needed their beleaguered former ace to turn back the clock.
And Bühler delivered.
“I don’t trust anyone more than Walker,” longtime Dodgers catcher Austin Barnes told Yahoo Sports after the game. “His ability to, you know, live in those moments. Many people can’t do that. Since I’ve been here he’s played a lot of big games for us. And no matter what happens at the beginning of the season or how he feels, I trust he will go out and compete.”
The competition came early in Game 3. In the bottom of the second, the Mets loaded the bases with one out behind two walks and an infield single. Buehler poured in a pair of runs in the top half of the frame and played with fire, giving the hosts an opening for a counterpunch. But the brash right-hander went down, striking out Francisco Álvarez and Francisco Lindor to end the threat.
His strikeout pitch to Lindor — a knuckleball curveball that dove under a monstrous hack from the Mets’ superstar shortstop — was vintage Buehler. He bounced down the hill in a cloud of boasting, shouting at himself and at no one and at everyone at the same time.
Buehler has always walked the fine line between confidence and cockiness, and sometimes crossed it.
This is a man who prefers to open twist-off beer bottles with his teeth because “it’s fun and it makes it.” [him] feel cool.” At his best, Buehler is arrogant, boastful and unapologetic. A rottweiler with high 90s heat. An F-bomb geyser on the hill and on the slab. Better than you and well aware of it. That trust led to success, which only led to more trust.
It was a powerful, almost unstoppable cycle that took Buehler to the top of his profession.
From 2018 through 2021, the swashbuckling right-hander posted the fourth-lowest ERA in Major League Baseball, behind greats like Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander. During Los Angeles’ championship run in the shortened 2020 season, Buehler was the club’s undisputed ace, the obvious choice to start Game 1 in each of the first three rounds. During five starts in October, he surrendered a total of five runs.
The next season he was even better, finishing fourth for Cy Young with a 2.47 ERA in over 200 frames. He was simply one of the best pitchers in the world.
Then came the injuries, as so often happen to people in this line of work. In August 2022, a second Tommy John surgery took place (he got one right after being drafted in 2015) accompanied by an additional procedure on his flexor tendon. Buehler’s rehabilitation was a sobering reminder that the road back from elbow surgery is not always linear. Twenty-three months – from June 2022 to May 2024 – passed between the start of the big league.
Buehler has been remarkably honest about the difficulties of that process, though he has been reluctant to classify his Game 3 performance as redemption. To him, at least publicly, it was just another playoff victory.
“It doesn’t mean much more to me than winning Game 3 of the NLCS,” he said in his postgame interview. “I think it could mean a lot to me down the road, but right now I’m going to enjoy tonight and then get ready when we have to play Game 7.”
After a high pitch count limited Buehler to just four innings on Wednesday, the bullpen quartet of Michael Kopech, Ryan Brasier, Blake Treinen and Ben Casparius didn’t blink and combined for five scoreless innings. The Mets managed only three baserunners against the Dodgers’ relievers. Postseason prophet Enrique Hernández added a two-run poke, his 15th career playoff home run, to provide some cushion in the sixth inning.
From that point on, the game seemed headed toward a forgettable conclusion. But Ohtani didn’t let that happen. In the eighth inning, with two runners on base, the two-time MVP silenced the already quiet crowd with a breathtaking moon shot from the upper deck. The homer pushed Ohtani’s playoff line with runners on base to a ridiculous 7-for-9 with two home runs.
Ohtani’s swing also had disgruntled Mets fans flooding the aisles. In the bottom of the eighth, the lower bowl of Citi Field was littered with empty seats reflecting the stadium lights. It was a strange image. Since the now infamous team meeting that sparked a historic turnaround on May 30, the Mets are 27-5 in evening games at home. The sight of this team losing in this setting felt rare in itself. The stakes only increased the disappointment.
But as bad as it was for the hosts, there are still plenty of series left. New York will send crafty left-hander José Quintana, who has been excellent for two months, to the mound in Game 4. Los Angeles will counter with Japanese thrill ride Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Wednesday, however, was all about Buehler, who now ranks second in Dodgers history in career playoff starts, behind only Clayton Kershaw. There remains a slim chance that Game 3 was his last. Buehler is a free agent this winter and a return to Chavez Ravine is far from guaranteed.
On the other hand, three straight Mets wins feel unlikely, leaving Buehler in line for NLCS Game 7 or a World Series start. Both would be another opportunity to continue rewriting his story.
