World Series 2024: Walker Buehler delivers his best performance of the year to put Dodgers one win away from a championship

NEW YORK — The past two years have been filled with unknowns for Walker Buehler.

When he tore his UCL for the second time during the 2022 season, there were immediately questions about whether a guy who was once one of baseball’s best young starting pitchers could return again. And with a team so quick to look for reinforcements, would there be a place for him on the Dodgers when he returned?

But big games have a way of finding L.A.’s right-hander. And when everything is on the table and the Dodgers push their chips to the middle, Buehler has been the right man to bet on.

“That feeling of, there’s an organization relying on me today to win a playoff game, I think it’s kind of the weight that I like feeling,” Buehler said after his team’s 4-2 victory in Game 3 of the World Series. “It kind of gets me in a certain place mentally that it’s kind of hard to replicate.”

For the second time in as many starts, Buehler silenced a New York crowd. This time, it was in the Bronx, and his performance Monday against the Yankees put L.A. on the precipice of sweeping this World Series.

Buehler’s first season back from his second Tommy John surgery came with ups-and-downs. Through struggles to find the strike zone, opponents barreling up the baseball and difficulty putting his arsenal together, the Dodgers’ right-hander sometimes questioned whether he still had the stuff to compete.

But in Game 3 against New York, Buehler not only had the stuff to compete but also had arguably his best stuff, particularly when it came to his fastball. He carved the Yankees up with his four-seamer, getting six whiffs and nine called strikes on the pitch and staying ahead of hitters all night.

“It kind of felt like it used to, at least a little bit closer,” Buehler said with a smile about his fastball. “Got a couple of swing-and-misses early in the game. That kind of resets you mentally to think, ‘I got a good one going today.’”

On Monday, Buehler didn’t allow a hit until Giancarlo Stanton’s fourth-inning double. And when he needed it, he got help from his defense, with multiple defensive gems from Mookie Betts and a laser from Teoscar Hernández, who threw Stanton out at home to end the fourth. Getting run support early — in the form of a first-inning, two-run blast by Freddie Freeman — allowed the seven-year veteran to be aggressive all night.

“Tonight, I thought his stuff was as good as it’s been all year,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said postgame. “I thought the fastball had life. The cutter was good. The curveball was good. He pitched to all four quadrants. Kept those guys honest, kept them at bay. … I couldn’t have asked any more from Walker tonight.”

Buehler, who’s set to be a free agent at season’s end, has struck out 11 batters in his past two starts, including five on Monday, and he has thrived on the road in hostile environments this October. This continues the trend of Buehler shining in the postseason. After his five shutout innings against the Yankees in Game 3, he’s 2-0 with a 0.50 ERA in three career World Series starts.

“I think if you take out that second inning [in San Diego in the NLDS] where we didn’t play good defense behind him, he would have thrown up nothing but zeros in the postseason,” Roberts said.

Buehler admitted that there’s something about the postseason that helps him find that little bit extra.

“As brutal as it is to say, it takes the adrenaline and that stuff to really get me going mentally,” he said. “I wish I would have felt that all year … but there is something different in the playoffs. And I think, at least long-term for me, to get through these playoffs in the way that I have, it’s really encouraging for me, personally. Just because I know it’s in there, and I just got to unlock it a little bit.”

Possibly the biggest story of this World Series for the Dodgers has been the performance of their starting rotation. The trio of Jack Flaherty, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Buehler seemed like the team’s biggest question going into this series, yet they’re pitching maybe their best games ever in the team’s biggest moments.

Through three World Series contests, the three Dodgers’ starters have combined to throw 16 2/3 innings while allowing just three earned runs on eight hits. Flaherty, Yamamoto and Buehler have each made it through at least five innings in their starts, too.

“I think that certainly there was a lot said about the rotation, given the injuries that we accrued coming into the postseason,” Roberts said. “But I think that we just kind of came together collectively, feeling the 13 guys on our roster, as far as pitchers, were going to do a good job of preventing runs.”

After Monday, the Dodgers’ pitchers need just 27 more outs.