'Confident' Buehler hopes to reward LA's trust

NEW YORK -- Walker Buehler has had the most challenging season of his career.

After spending the past couple of seasons recovering from a second Tommy John surgery, the right-hander made it back to a Major League mound in May. With the natural expectations that followed him, everyone on the outside thought it would be an easy road back to being the team’s ace.

The reality, however, is that it’s going to take some time for Buehler to get back to that form. It didn’t happen this year as he posted a 5.38 ERA and had multiple stints on the injured list. But if Buehler is able to put together a strong October, none of that will matter.

His next challenge will come on Wednesday against the Mets. For the second consecutive round, Buehler is tasked with starting the pivotal Game 3 with the series tied at one game apiece.

“I feel good. I feel confident,” Buehler said. “I think that probably was one of my biggest strengths for a long time was my confidence, I guess. At times this year that’s kind of wavered somewhat. The past six or eight [starts] I’ve kind of felt like have been building blocks of some kind. And hoping to keep that going.”

It’s not by accident that the Dodgers are once again leaning on Buehler to start a key game in the series. The Dodgers could have gone with Buehler in Game 2, but instead decided to save him for Wednesday’s road game.

“I think in totality with Walker, I would want the same effort, execution, focus and certainly, a different result,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “The series at 1-1, here on the road again, which we feel really confident in Walker. I expect he’s going to come out with the same kind of conviction and focus.”

It’s not common for a team to be this confident in a starter with an ERA over 5.00 during the regular season and coming off a postseason start in which he gave up six earned runs over five innings. But Buehler has earned that respect over his career, often delivering big performances in the biggest games.

In his last start against the Padres, his results could have been much different. If Freddie Freeman doesn’t throw a ball off Manny Machado’s shoulder and if Miguel Rojas doesn’t make a key defensive mistake, Buehler likely gets out of that second inning without much damage. Instead, the Padres tagged Buehler for six earned runs in the frame and the Dodgers weren’t able to recover.

To Buehler’s credit, however, he was able to bounce back with three scoreless innings to end his outing, setting up the Dodgers for success for the rest of the series.

“If you look at my year, I’ve had a lot of struggles having clean innings,” Buehler said. “And that second inning was a little squirrelly, but I had four pretty clean ones outside of that. It definitely helps mentally. But at the end of the day, I’ve got to go pitch good tomorrow.”