It’s a discouraging sign when a juggernaut team like the Los Angeles Dodgers falls to the worst team in their league.
That’s what happened on Saturday, as Dodgers former All-Star pitcher Walker Buehler unsuccessfully led Los Angeles on the affair against the last seed in the National League, the Colorado Rockies. Buehler lasted six innings and allowed the Rockies to score four runs on his watch.
At a juncture of the season where the Dodgers are expected to be fine-tuning chinks in their armor in preparation for a World Series run, a loss of this magnitude serves as cause for pause. Despite this, Buehler was able to extract positives from his performance in the midst of his season-long struggles, as he told the media after the loss. But is it enough to instill confidence in those around him that he can perform against imposing offenses in the league once the postseason arrives?
Dodgers: Walker Buehler questioned whether or not he could still compete in the MLB
Per Mike DiGiovanna of The Los Angeles Times, the two-time All-Star as recently as 2021 and former World Series champion reflected on his uncharacteristic woes and whether or not he believed in himself enough to still give it his all on the mound in the big leagues (h/t Ricardo Sandoval of Dodgers Nation):
“I’ve had some rough patches where I’ve really questioned if I have the stuff to compete,” Buehler said. “Tonight, I felt like I could compete, and I just didn’t make the big pitches in the big spots, or I kind of made little mistakes in the big spots, and that’s frustrating. … There were some encouraging things about it, but obviously not good enough at this point of the year, when we’re trying to keep the lead in the division.”
Does Buehler have the stuff to right the ship and help the Dodgers in the playoffs?
The Dodgers (93-63) have a one-game lead over the Philadelphia Phillies (92-64) for the top seed in the NL. Destined for the playoffs, Buehler can turn his inflated 5.63 ERA and 1.578 WHIP over 15 regular season starts around in the postseason.
In order to do so, cleaning up the little mistakes he made against the Rockies, as he attested to, will be paramount toward him developing a rhythm at the right time. The Kentucky native struck out the side in the third inning and made quick work of the three batters he faced in the fourth. However, outside of that, he allowed multiple hitters to get on base early in the inning in the first and second and was killed by conceding inopportune doubles that moved those runners on the bags. That accounted for three of his four runs allowed.
Cleaning that up will do well for Buehler. Further, he is only 30 years old, which by no means is old in the world of the MLB, so perhaps the success of the Dodgers and the energy that will emanate from Dodger Stadium once the lights shine brightest will answer that key question of whether he still has the stuff to compete. His track record suggests that it still might lie within him. He just needs something to catalyze it.
