Walker Buehler helps Dodgers stay alive with gutsy, short-rest outing in Game 4

By Pedro Moura
FOX Sports MLB Writer

LOS ANGELES – Tuesday marked the last of an array of checkpoints in Walker Buehler’s way on his path to becoming an ace. With the Dodgers desperate for a win, he requested the ball on short rest, gutted through a start at less than his best, and helped force a fateful Game 5 in this taut National League Division Series.

"It’s another thing, in terms of trying to become the baseball player that I am, that I wanted to do," said Buehler, already a decorated postseason performer. "I’m glad it worked out for us."

It was not a surprise that he came through in the Dodgers’ 7-2 victory over the Giants. In 13 career postseason starts, Buehler now has a stellar 2.50 ERA with 92 strikeouts and just 48 hits allowed in 72 innings. 

It was more of a surprise that he had the chance to pitch Tuesday. His Game 4 start at Dodger Stadium was the first time in his professional career he took the ball with fewer than four days off between starts.

As Buehler emerged as a standout in 2018, the Dodgers determined they would, as a rule, rather rest him than push him. Whenever possible, they switched their starting schedule to accommodate that desire. Nearly three-quarters of Buehler’s starts to date have come with at least one extra day of rest. He sometimes went entire months without taking the mound on the standard schedule. That strategy held through 2020, and, to some extent, 2021, when he still received extra rest more often than most major leaguers.

But no one else in baseball made more starts than Buehler’s 33 this season. He repeatedly rose to the moment. On Tuesday, that moment merely required him to get the Dodgers going, not take them all the way to victory.

"Sometimes, when you might be a little bit more fatigued and not too amped up or too strong, you kind of try not to do too much," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "All night long, he stayed in his delivery. All the stuff, the velocity, the characteristics of his secondary pitches was really good."

Roberts joked that Buehler’s pitches were even better than in his good-but-not-great Game 1. Still, the Dodgers are unlikely to repeat this short-rest gambit anytime soon.

The Division Series schedule is perfectly designed to tempt teams into using their Game 1 starters on short rest in the fourth game. The Dodgers have faced this precise predicament with Clayton Kershaw too many times to count, and his tepid results are warning enough against it. Still, the temptation remains.

Either survival or advancement is always on the line, and the series’ Game 2 starter will always be ready on normal rest for the fifth game. If the gamble pays off and the team advances, that first-choice starter will be on regular rest by Game 2 of the Championship Series. That round is another story, as is the World Series. If one starter goes on short rest in either, someone else must, too. 

But the Dodgers’ decision to start Buehler on Tuesday was a one-off. Left-hander Julio Urías, a seasoned postseason performer himself, will start Thursday’s series finale in San Francisco. After electing against using Game 1 starter Logan Webb on short rest Tuesday, the Giants will have both Webb and Game 2 starter Kevin Gausman rested and ready.

Buehler also revealed why making the short-rest choice is so risky. Roberts said he wanted to wait until Buehler reported how he was feeling Tuesday morning before he formalized the choice. Buehler confessed that there was no way whatsoever he would have told Roberts he was not feeling good enough to pitch. The safety lock wouldn’t have worked.

"As long as I could walk into the clubhouse," Buehler said, "I think I was going to pitch."

So the Dodgers were fortunate he actually was feeling fine. And they smartly did not push their luck. Roberts pulled Buehler after 71 pitches, 13 outs, and one run, in a situation he surely would have pitched through had it taken place one day later. The bullpen held the line just fine.

The wild wind from one day earlier was nowhere to be found, and the Dodgers seized on the more favorable conditions. Hits on consecutive Anthony DeSclafani sliders by Corey Seager and Trea Turner netted a first-inning run. The Dodgers tacked on a second run in the second, after Gavin Lux roped a changeup into right field and Cody Bellinger followed, two pitches later, with another single to right. Chris Taylor swatted a sacrifice fly deep to left. 

In the fourth, Mookie Betts’ opposite-field homer supplied two more runs. Betts soon added a sacrifice fly, and Will Smith tacked on two more with another homer in the eighth, allowing the Dodgers to rest closer Kenley Jansen.

Had they known they’d get that kind of offensive output, the Dodgers surely would have saved Buehler for the finale and pieced together a bullpen game with Tony Gonsolin opening. But the Giants shut them out in two of this series’ first three games, so they had to prioritize run prevention.

Last offseason, after Buehler propelled the Dodgers to their first championship in 32 years, the team approached him with a sizable contract extension offer. After an excruciating consideration process, the 27-year-old right-hander turned them down and settled for a smaller two-year deal.

"It’s fun in a lot of ways," Buehler told FOX Sports earlier this year of the negotiations. "It's also extremely stressful. The moment you say no, you think you should have said yes, and the moment you said yes, you’re gonna regret it, as in any big decision. Like, as soon as you buy the car and you drive it, you're gonna be like, ‘I shouldn't have done this.’"

The Dodgers faced a big decision Tuesday. They made a choice they had not before. Fortunately, they never had to confront regret that they chose wrong. 

"I just know, when our backs are against the wall," Betts said, "we got a guy named Walker Buehler that ends up getting us out of it."

Pedro Moura is the national baseball writer for FOX Sports. He most recently covered the Dodgers for three seasons for The Athletic. Previously, he spent five years covering the Angels and Dodgers for the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times. More previously, he covered his alma mater, USC, for ESPNLosAngeles.com. The son of Brazilian immigrants, he grew up in the Southern California suburbs. Follow him on Twitter @pedromoura.