The Walker Buehler who retired 11 of 12 batters with six strikeouts from the second through fifth innings Saturday night could play in a postseason rotation for the Dodgers.
The Buehler who gave up three runs and three hits, walked one batter and hit another while throwing 42 pitches in the first two choppy innings? Not so much.
The search for the start-to-start consistency and the extended stretches of dominance that made Buehler the team’s ace from 2019 to 2021 continued to elude the right-hander in a 6-3 loss to the Colorado Rockies before a sold-out crowd of 52,267 in Chavez Ravine, further muddling the team’s playoff pitching picture.
The Dodgers had a chance for a dramatic win when they loaded the bases with two outs in the ninth, but Rockies right-hander Seth Halvorsen blew a 100-mph fastball by Max Muncy for a game-ending strikeout.
The loss reduced the Dodgers’ National League West lead to three games over San Diego and five over Arizona and kept their magic number to clinch the division at five with seven games left, three against the Padres at home this week.
Buehler, who missed the first five weeks of the season while recovering from his second Tommy John surgery and two months from mid-June to mid-August because of a left-hip injury, gave up four earned runs and five hits in 5⅓ innings, striking out nine and walking one, to fall to 1-6 with a 5.63 earned-run average in 13 starts.
That somewhat negated the progress Buehler seemed to make in his previous start, when he battled through early command issues in a six-inning, two-run (one earned), five-strikeout effort in a 9-2 win at Atlanta on Sept. 15.
Buehler gave up one run in a 27-pitch first inning that Charlie Blackmon started with a double over center fielder Tommy Edman’s head. Ezequiel Tovar walked, the runners advanced on a wild pitch, and Blackmon scored when Buehler threw high to the plate after making a lunging grab of Michael Toglia’s chopper over his head.
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Toglia stole second to put runners on second and third with one out, but Buehler minimized damage by striking out Brendan Rodgers and Sam Hilliard swinging at 92-mph cut fastballs.
The Rockies pushed the lead to 3-0 in the second when Nolan Jones reached on an infield single, Jacob Stallings was hit by a pitch and Tovar laced a two-out, two-run double into the left-field corner.
The Dodgers cut the deficit to 3-2 in the third when Shohei Ohtani walked on four pitches and Mookie Betts drove a first-pitch, 93-mph sinker from right-hander Cal Quantrill into the left-center pavilion for his 18th homer of the season.
Muncy walked with one out in the fourth, Gavin Lux singled to right, and rookie catcher Hunter Feduccia lined a single to right for his first RBI and a 3-3 tie.
Buehler recovered from his rocky start to retire nine straight batters before hanging a first-pitch, 77-mph curve to Ryan McMahon, who drove a two-out homer — his 20th of the season — into the left-center seats for a 4-3 Colorado lead in the fifth.
The Dodgers threatened in the fifth, loading the bases with two outs, but Rockies left-hander Luis Peralta replaced Quantrill and struck out the left-handed-hitting Lux with a 97-mph fastball to end the inning. The Dodgers put two on with one out in the sixth, but Betts grounded into an inning-ending, 5-4-3 double play.
The Rockies scored two big insurance runs off Daniel Hudson in the ninth, Jake Cave blooping a one-out double to right and Blackmon lining a two-run homer to right on a 95-mph, 0-and-2 fastball for a 6-3 lead.
While Buehler struggled to solidify a spot in the playoff rotation, a long-shot option may have emerged Saturday night in Salt Lake City, where Tony Gonsolin threw 45 pitches over three hitless innings with six strikeouts and one walk in his third rehabilitation start for triple-A Oklahoma City.
Gonsolin is one year removed from Tommy John surgery, but manager Dave Roberts said before Saturday’s game that the 30-year-old right-hander and 2022 All-Star could emerge as a candidate for the postseason rotation or bullpen.
“He’s been good, so we’ve just got to keep building him up,” Roberts said. “If this one goes well, then I think a conversation about him joining us at some point is more tangible.”
Gonsolin would have to make at least one more start — for the Dodgers or Oklahoma City — and throw 60 pitches over four innings before being considered for a rotation spot. But he does have experience in the bullpen, having made eight relief appearances from 2019 to 2021.
“The great thing about Tony is that he’s done both, and I think they both have their own value,” Roberts said. “No. 1 is to get him right, get him built up, and then we’ll kind of assess where our staff is at, in its totality.”