NEW YORK -- Out of seemingly nowhere, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts entrusted Walker Buehler -- his Game 3 starting pitcher -- with the final three outs of a World Series clincher two days later at Yankee Stadium.

And nobody seems to remember when it was decided that Buehler would be available.

“I just talked to him, and I said I’ll be down there if you need me,” Buehler recalled after the Dodgers’ dramatic 7-6 Game 5 victory. “In the sixth inning.”

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“Seventh inning,” Roberts said. “He just said that he's going to be available.”

“For Walker to want the ball in that situation -- I saw him in the fifth inning walking down [to the bullpen] with his glove and that look in his eye,” said World Series MVP Freddie Freeman.

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You know what? Maybe it’s better this way. All good October legends come with a touch of mystique. The point is this: Buehler was very much not available to pitch on Wednesday. And then, at some point in the middle innings, he suddenly was.

Out of necessity more than anything else. The Dodgers had gotten only four outs from starting pitcher Jack Flaherty. They’d used a bullpen game the night before. Roberts was forced to use his highest-leverage arms to cover key outs early. That included a spectacular 2 1/3 scoreless innings from right-hander Blake Treinen.

The Dodgers were essentially out of pitchers. They had lower-leverage options available -- but all of those relievers had labored in Tuesday’s bullpen game. Buehler was slated to start a potential Game 7, but he hadn’t thrown a between-starts bullpen session.

“That,” Roberts said, “was our last bullet.”

Buehler would be asked to face the bottom of the Yankees' order. A favorable lane, maybe. But one mistake, and he would run into the gauntlet at the top.

Instead, Buehler retired those 7-8-9 hitters in order. Anthony Volpe grounded out weakly on a curveball. Austin Wells swung and missed at a curveball for strike three. When Alex Verdugo did the same -- at another curveball -- Buehler raised his glove hand and his pitching hand skyward. His teammates poured out of the dugout and mobbed him.

“I feel like,” Buehler said, “I’m supposed to be in those spots.”

Not that Buehler’s reputation for October heroics needed any further burnishment. After he’d grinded his way through a rough regular season in which he posted a 5.38 ERA in 16 starts, he latched onto his status as a big-game pitcher.

“That's kind of all I care about,” Buehler said earlier this week. “It makes, kind of, the regular season worth it for me.”

Buehler entered the 2024 playoffs with a 2.94 career postseason ERA and 101 strikeouts. Still, if not for multiple injuries to other Dodgers starters, he might not have been pitching at all this postseason.

Instead, he pitched four scoreless innings in Game 3 of the NLCS against the Mets, then five scoreless against the Yankees in a Game 3 victory. But Buehler had never appeared in relief in the postseason. Until Wednesday night.

When he nailed down the save, Buehler joined a short list of eight players -- since saves became an official stat in 1969 -- who recorded both a win and a save in the same playoff series (a list that also includes teammate Clayton Kershaw). The last pitcher to do it in a World Series was, quite famously, Madison Bumgarner for the 2014 Giants.

“The experience, the pedigree -- we were all in at that point in time, and he wanted the baseball,” Roberts said. “I just felt that he wasn't going to run from the moment. I just felt he was the best option.”

It had been more than six years since Buehler last entered a game in relief. His last save? More than seven years ago, with Triple-A Oklahoma City on Aug. 13. That summer, the Dodgers moved Buehler, then a highly touted prospect, into their bullpen, thinking he might be able to bolster their playoff push. He posted a 7.71 ERA in eight appearances and didn’t pitch in the playoffs.

“I’m a little different,” Buehler said, “from when I was 23.”

Buehler has been through plenty since then. He underwent a second Tommy John surgery and only returned in May. When he did so, the life on his fastball wasn’t quite there. He struggled through the summer and into September.

Then the playoffs came around, and as Buehler said ahead of his Game 3 start: “There is something different about the playoffs.”

Different enough for Buehler to approach president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman on Wednesday afternoon with an idea:

“Earlier in the day, Walker said, ‘Hey, if things get wonky, I’ll be available in the 'pen,’” Friedman said. “And I’m like, ‘Yeah, yeah, Walker.’ And then in the sixth inning, I was like, ‘This is the definition of wonky, right?’

“The way he competes -- we can only hope that in future Drafts we get guys that compete like Walker Buehler does.”

Friedman might need to find some. Buehler is set to become a free agent this winter. If this was his final act as a Dodger, it will go down as a legendary one.