by Cary Osborne
It’s not just the playoff performances, the dominance and the wins that have earned Walker Buehler a place among the best pitchers in the game.
It’s also performances like Tuesday at Dodger Stadium.
After facing three batters and getting out of the first inning quickly against the Houston Astros, Buehler battled the rest of the game. He fell behind to 14 of the next 22 batters. He retired the side in order in the fifth inning only. His evening was done after matching a career-high 113 pitches.
And yet, Buehler allowed one run.
The lone run crossed the plate on a Michael Brantley RBI-double in the third inning.
Still, Buehler couldn’t find satisfaction, as the Dodgers dropped the first game of highly charged two-game series with the Houston Astros 3–0 in front of 52,692 — the largest crowd to see a Major League Baseball game this year
“My job is to get guys out, and I didn’t get the percentage of guys out that I needed,” Buehler said. “Gave up a run to lose a tie game, so no, there’s not a whole lot to be pleased about.”
Buehler went six innings, allowed five hits, three walks, struck out five and allowed the lone run. He also benefited from this play from Mookie Betts in the fifth inning on a Brantley line drive:
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— @Dodgers
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It’s the 21st time in 22 starts that Buehler has lasted six innings or longer this season.
“I think Walker didn’t have his best stuff, but just gritted away, grinded away and found a way to get through six innings and put us in a position to win a baseball game,” said manager Dave Roberts.
In the sixth inning, with his pitch count above the century mark, Buehler battled through 10-pitch at-bat to get a lineout from the power-hitting Yordan Alvarez. Later, with two outs, he walked Kyle Tucker. It forced manager Dave Roberts to get out of his seat, but he sat down and let Buehler go after Robel García. Buehler induced an inning-ending popout on the second pitch of the at-bat.
“He pitched well. He was pretty amped up. He was ready to go,” said catcher Will Smith. “He was probably a little more inconsistent, a little more wild than he usually is, but he executed pitches, got out of some jams. He had six really strong innings and kept them at one run.”
The Dodgers offense, after scoring 26 runs over three games in Arizona this past weekend, couldn’t get rolling on Tuesday.
The Dodgers had two on in the first, fourth, seventh and eighth innings and came up empty each time. In the fourth, they had two on and one out, but couldn’t push a run past Houston starter Lance McCullers Jr.
McCullers allowed four hits, three walks and struck out nine Dodgers over 6 2/3 innings. The Dodgers knocked him out of the game in the seventh with a scoring opportunity.
AJ Pollock singled off McCullers’s foot and took second base on a throwing error by the third baseman García. It gave Pollock the longest hitting streak of his career at 12 games and gave the Dodgers some momentum.
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After pinch-hitter Matt Beaty struck out, McCullers walked Betts and gave way to lefty-beater Blake Taylor.
The left-handed hitting Max Muncy fought him to a ninth pitch after eight consecutive fastballs. Taylor then delivered a slider off the plate that drew a swing and miss from Muncy, ending the inning.
Left-handers are now 5-for-42 this year against Taylor.
In the top of the eighth, Houston extended its lead to 3–0 on an Alvarez two-run home run off Victor González.
The Dodgers go into Wednesday and the finale of this highly anticipated series with the highly anticipated debut of Max Scherzer in a Dodger uniform.
Buehler is gritty and stingy, but the Dodgers drop opener to Astros was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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