The Los Angeles Dodgers suffered a heartbreaking loss to the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field on Saturday night, falling 3-2 on a three-run walk-off home run by Ryan McMahon with two outs in the ninth inning.
It marked the second night in a row that the Dodgers bullpen blew a late lead on a home run to McMahon, and it spoiled a brilliant outing from rookie right-hander Walker Buehler.
He tossed seven shutout innings in the loss, allowing just four hits while striking out six and walking three. Buehler has now been able to get through seven innings four times this season.
He had a similar outing on May 27 against the San Diego Padres when he gave up just four hits and one run while striking out eight without allowing a walk through seven frames.
Buehler believes his performnace against the Rockies was his next best starts but wishes he could have limited walks and pitched deeper into the game, via Anne Rogers of MLB.com:
“This one was probably my best outing outside of that,” Buehler said. “The three walks are kind of annoying to me now, because you take away those three at-bats I probably get into the eighth there, so those three walks hurt. I kind of learned from it.”
Buehler has developed into one of the Dodgers better starters this season, and after a couple rough outings when he first returned from the disabled list, he seems to be rounding back into his pre-injury form with his third solid starts in a row.
Overall on the season, Buehler is 5-4 with a 3.32 ERA and 1.06 WHIP while striking out 85 and walking 19 in 81.1 innings across 15 games (14 starts).
