Walker Buehler set a season high with 10 strikeouts and the Los Angeles Dodgers saw improvement in hitting with runners in scoring position, but it still produced an all-too-familiar result. The 6-5 defeat at the hands of the Cincinnati Reds was the Dodgers’ third straight loss and seventh in their last nine games.
L.A. fell into an immediate deficit as Buehler’s first pitch of the game was sent into the Home Run Seats in right-center field by Jesse Winker. Will Smith put the Dodgers ahead with a three-run homer in the fourth inning, but the Reds responded with two runs in the fifth to tie it.
Then after the Dodgers again took a lead by scoring two runs in the sixth inning, the Reds answered back with three in the seventh. Buehler was charged with five earned runs over his 6.1 innings of work.
“I don’t care if you punch out 27, to keep giving up leads that our offense kept giving me, it’s not acceptable,” Buehler said.
The five runs Buehler allowed are the most in any of his five starts this season, and they raised his ERA to 3.16. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts nonetheless was generally pleased with the outing.
“I thought it was good. There was a lot of punch in there, I thought the stuff was really good,” Roberts said. “I think if you look back, there were a couple mistakes in there. But, I thought Walker was good.
“Where we were at right there with his pitch count, getting him back out there for the bottom part of the order, I thought it was good to try to squeeze another inning out of him. Just wasn’t to be. But overall, solid performance.”
Buehler’s strikeouts on the rise
After recording exactly four strikeouts in each of his first three starts, Buehler now has a combined 19 in 13.1 innings pitched over the past two innings. The increase can be attributed to ironing out mechanics and also a bump in velocity as the season has worn on.
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