Buehler, 4 relievers shut out Mets as Dodgers win NLCS Game 3 - ESPN

NEW YORK — Sometimes, one pitch in the second inning can save a baseball game. Sometimes, it can salvage an entire season for a player.

In the bottom of the second of Game 3 of the National League Championship Series on Wednesday night, Walker Buehler faced Francisco Lindor, bases loaded, two outs, Buehler's Los Angeles Dodgers leading Lindor's New York Mets 2-0.

It's been a trying season for Buehler, the one-time postseason star who returned after missing most of 2022 and all of 2023 following the second Tommy John surgery of his career. He made 16 starts in the regular season — and won once, posting a 5.38 ERA. This is a pitcher who won 16 games in 2021 with a 2.47 ERA, a pitcher who threw seven scoreless innings in a World Series game as a rookie, who allowed three runs over a 21-inning stretch in the 2020 postseason when the Dodgers won it all.

He's in the playoff rotation now only because the Dodgers didn't have any other healthy options. In his start against the Padres in the NL Division Series, he allowed six runs in one inning.

Wednesday night, the count ran full to Lindor, as Buehler stuck with his four-seam fastball and knuckle-curve. With the count 3-2, catcher Will Smith called for the curve. Buehler threw it, it dived wonderfully below Lindor's knees, and the Mets star swung and missed.

It's not the pitch Buehler would have turned to when he was at his peak as one of the hardest-throwing young right-handers in the game.

«Oh, in 2018, 2019, 2020, I would have thrown a fastball. Yeah,» he said after the game.

The Dodgers rolled from there to an 8-0 victory and 2-1 series lead — their remarkable fourth shutout in five playoff games, going back to blanking the Padres in the final two games of the NLDS. Buehler