He Walker Buehler who retired 11 of 12 batters with six strikeouts from the second through fifth innings Saturday night could play in a postseason rotation for the Dodgers.
The Buehler who allowed three runs on three hits, walked one and hit another while throwing 42 pitches in the first two choppy innings? Not so much.
He consistency from start to finish and the long stretches of dominance that made Buehler the team’s ace from 2019 to 2021 continued to elude the right-hander in a Loss 6-3 the Colorado Rockies before a crowd of 52,267 at Chavez Ravine, further complicating the team’s pitching outlook in the playoffs.
Buehler, who missed the first five weeks of the season recovering from his second Tommy John surgery and two months from mid-June to mid-August with a left hip injury, allowed four earned runs and five hits in 5⅓ innings, striking out nine and walking one, to fall to 1-6 with a 5.63 ERA in 13 starts.
Read more: Tyler Glasnow frustrated by recurring elbow issues: ‘It’s just exhausting’
Saturday night’s inconsistent performance undid some of the progress Buehler made in his previous start, when he battled early control issues in a six-inning, two-run (one earned), five-strikeout performance in a 9-2 victory in Atlanta September 15th.
“I’ve been through some tough times where I’ve really questioned whether I have what it takes to compete,” Buehler said. “Tonight, I felt like I could compete, but I didn’t make the big shots at the big times, or I made little mistakes at the big times, and that’s frustrating. … There were some encouraging things about it, but obviously not good enough at this point in the year when we’re trying to hold onto the division lead.”
The loss cut the Dodgers’ lead in the NL West to three games over San Diego and five over Arizona and kept their magic number to clinch the division at five with seven games remaining, three against the Padres at home this week.
Buehler put the Dodgers in a tough spot from the start, continuing his pattern of early-inning struggles followed by three or four innings of ERA.
“He’s getting stressed out a lot in the first inning,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We’ve got to find a way to get a clean first inning because it seems like in the third, fourth and fifth innings he’s finding his groove.”
Roberts actually saw more reason for optimism than concern, pointing to the 14 strikes Buehler induced, five with his fastball and four with his curveball.
With injuries wreaking havoc on the rotation, Roberts might have no choice but to lean on Buehler in October, but the manager appears to have no reservations about handing the ball to Buehler to start in the playoffs.
“This is the most confident I’ve ever been in Walker,” Roberts said. “I think so, but obviously he needs to have some success to believe that, too. I think with nine strikeouts and the command of the baseball that he has, I feel very confident that he’ll be a playoff starter for us.”
Buehler allowed one run in a 27-pitch first inning that included Charlie Blackmon’s leadoff double, Ezequiel Tovar’s walk and Michael Toglia’s fielder’s choice. Buehler minimized the damage by striking out Brendan Rodgers and Sam Hilliard, who both hit 92 mph fastballs with runners on second and third.
The Rockies extended the lead to 3-0 in the second when Nolan Jones reached base on an infield single, Jacob Stallings was hit by a pitch and Tovar hit a two-run double with two outs to the left-field corner.
The Dodgers cut the deficit to 3-2 in the third when Shohei Ohtani walked and Mookie Betts He hit a 93 mph sinker on the first pitch from right-hander Cal Quantrill into left-center field for his 18th home run.
Max Muncy walked with one out in the fourth, Gavin Lux singled to right and rookie catcher Hunter Feduccia singled to right for his first RBI and a 3-3 tie.
Buehler rebounded from his rough start to retire nine straight batters before landing a 77 mph curveball on the first pitch to Ryan McMahon, who launched a two-out homer (his 20th of the season) into the left-center seats for a 4-3 Colorado lead in the fifth.
“We tied the game and then I gave up the home run, so that was really discouraging,” Buehler said. “The amount of missed swings was encouraging, but at the end of the day, none of that really matters if they keep putting up good numbers.”
The Dodgers threatened in the fifth, loading the bases with two outs, but Rockies left-hander Luis Peralta replaced Quantrill and struck out left-hander Lux on a 97 mph fastball to end the inning.
The Rockies scored two big insurance runs off Daniel Hudson in the ninth, Jake Cave hit a one-out double to right field and Blackmon hit a two-run homer to right field on a 95 mph fastball, 0 and 2 for a 6-3 lead.
The Dodgers positioned themselves for a dramatic comeback when they loaded the bases with two outs in the ninth (Ohtani stole his 53rd base), but Rockies right-hander Seth Halvorsen exploited a 100 mph fastball from Muncy for a game-ending strikeout.
As Buehler struggled to cement a spot in the playoff rotation, an unlikely option may have emerged Saturday night in Salt Lake City, where Tony Gonsolin threw 45 pitches over three hitless innings with six strikeouts and one walk in his third rehab start for Triple-A Oklahoma City.
Gonsolin underwent Tommy John surgery a year ago, but Roberts said before Saturday’s game that the 30-year-old right-hander and 2022 All-Star could emerge as a candidate for the postseason rotation or bullpen.
Read more: Shohei Ohtani’s new book chronicling his journey from Japan to the Dodgers is now on sale
“He’s been doing well, so we just have to keep getting him ready,” Roberts said. “If this goes well, then I think a conversation about him joining us at some point will become more tangible.”
Gonsolin would have to make at least one more start, for the Dodgers or Oklahoma City, and throw 60 pitches over four innings before being considered for a rotation spot. But he has bullpen experience, having made eight relief appearances between 2019 and 2021.
“The great thing about Tony is that he’s done both, and I think both have their own value,” Roberts said. “The first thing is to get him fit, develop him, and then we’ll evaluate how our staff is as a whole.”
Sign up for more Dodgers news at Dodgers Dugout. It airs at the start of each series.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
