Buehler struggles again as LA loses ground

DENVER -- Dodgers starter Walker Buehler was one of the most dominant pitchers in the Majors over the first five months of the season. He had a 2.05 ERA at the end of August, the best in MLB among qualifying starters.

Buehler was putting together the type of season that everyone knew the right-hander was capable of producing. His elite stuff had never been the question, but he had found a way to put it all together. At one point, he was the front-runner to win the National League Cy Young Award.

Over his last four starts, however, Buehler has looked a bit more human. He had his worst outing of the season on Sept. 5 against the Giants, allowing a season-high six runs. His second worst start of the season came on Wednesday where he allowed five runs over 3 2/3 innings in the Dodgers’ 10-5 loss to the Rockies at Coors Field.

The timing for Buehler’s two worst starts of the season haven’t been ideal for the Dodgers, now two games behind the Giants (who held on vs. the Padres) in the National League West race with 10 games remaining in the regular season.

“I didn’t do my job, I think that’s the biggest thing,” Buehler said. “They gave me a lead and then I couldn’t protect it. My job is to set the tone and I didn’t do that.”

From the start of his outing, it was evident that Buehler didn’t have his best stuff. He was leaning on his four-seam fastball even more than usual, throwing the pitch 41 times. Buehler said, due to his recent struggles, he was trying to establish the pitch, one that has helped him have the success he’s had in the big leagues.

It didn’t work as Buehler didn’t record a swing-and-miss against a position player until the fourth inning. In fact, he only recorded four swings-and-misses all game, the lowest in any start this season.

But despite how he looked from the onset, Buehler was able to keep the Rockies off the scoreboard through three innings and it looked like the right-hander was going to find a way to fight through not having his best stuff. In the fourth, the Rockies broke through.

Brendan Rodgers led off the inning with a homer. The Rockies then followed that up with four consecutive singles, capped off by Ryan McMahon’s two-run hit to tie the game at 3. After retiring the next two hitters, it appeared that Buehler was going to find his way out of the inning. Instead, Rockies pitcher Germán Márquez hit a two-out, two-run double to give the Rockies a 5-3 lead.

That turned out to be the last pitch Buehler threw on Wednesday. His 3 2/3-inning outing was his second shortest of the season. Buehler’s September ERA is now 7.32 through four starts. The stretch has pushed his season ERA from 2.05 to 2.58.

“We have a great team and a lot of guys that are really talented and I want to be a cog in that,” Buehler said. “I don’t necessarily need to be the only thing in that, I just want to fit in, and right now, I’m not even doing that. I’ll address that and figure it out. We’ll see what happens.”

While Buehler took the bulk of the hits, he was certainly not the only Dodgers pitcher to struggle. Of the six pitchers that took the mound, only Corey Knebel tossed a clean inning. Alex Vesia, who has been one of the Dodgers’ best relievers since being recalled on July 9, had a rough outing, allowing four unearned runs over two-thirds of an inning. The runs were unearned after Vesia couldn’t hang on to the ball in a collision with Charlie Blackmon, which was ruled an error.

The lack of run prevention on Wednesday was almost shocking for a Dodgers team that has the best pitching staff in the league. The 10 runs scored by Colorado were the most allowed by the Dodgers since allowing 12 to the Rangers on June 12.

If the Dodgers want to avoid a one-game Wild Card, they can’t afford too many more nights like Wednesday.

“Walker is trying to figure out some things after his last few starts, [we’re] confident he will,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “I thought offensively we did a nice job and we just couldn’t overcome what those guys did offensively.”