I want to believe in Walker Buehler. I probably should cut my losses, chalk it up as a bad contract, and try to convince myself on the next pitcher the Red Sox claim off waivers. What’s Mauricio Llovera up to? If he’s still throwing 98 mph sinkers, I might be in.
Simply put, Buehler has not been good this season. He has a 5.45 ERA in 112.1 innings this season. He’s striking out a career-low 16.5% of hitters and walking a career-high 10.8%. As the king of looking for a silver lining in a Red Sox pitcher’s
performance, Buehler is a tough one to defend.
The Red Sox, at least with their actions, had a hard time defending Buehler as well. After his last start, the team announced they would be moving him to the bullpen. Fortunately, for an optimist/lunatic like myself, the role change is an opportunity to reassess the pitcher. What if Buehler is a different guy out of the bullpen?
Unfortunately, after a single relief appearance, Buehler looks more or less like the same guy, at least in terms of approach. He used all seven of his pitches, and didn’t see a meaningful bump in velocity in a shorter role. It was his first bullpen appearance, and he needed to cover multiple innings, so I’m willing to ignore the lack of velocity increase for now. Still, he walked a hitter, gave up two hits and two runs, and couldn’t keep the Red Sox in the game. Let’s see how it looks in practice before we jump to conclusions.
Here’s Trent Grisham with one out in the seventh inning.
The first pitch is a fastball on the inside corner for strike one. Good pitch.
Buehler follows it up with a slider that misses on the inside edge to even the count.
At 1-1, Buehler goes with the changeup that misses badly.
Buehler again misses with a curveball for 3-1.
And Buehler again misses badly to put Grisham on first base on five pitches. While it’s only one at-bat, it looked very similar to his outings as a starter. Buehler is fighting himself rather than the hitter, and he’s handing out free bases as a result.
Aaron Judge comes up next with Grisham on first.
At 0-0, Buehler goes with the cutter to be careful with a dangerous hitter, but again misses badly to fall behind 1-0.
At 1-0, Buehler misses for a sixth straight time. Now, down 2-0, he should look for a way to induce weak contact and get out of the at-bat.
Now that’s better. Buehler throws a sinker in on Judge’s hands that’s fouled off for a strike. While the pitch might be a tad high, it’s in an area where it’s tough for a hitter to get around and hit hard. At 2-1, Buehler can try to go back inside, or go away from Judge with a slider or cutter.
A sweeper works as well. It’s not the best sweeper Buehler has ever thrown with only 13 inches of horizontal movement, but it gets the job done as Judge is out in front. With two strikes, Buehler can go back on the offensive and try to get Judge to expand the zone.
Nice pitch. Buehler goes to his curveball and places it below the zone. Judge is looking for something hard and comes up empty.
Let’s jump ahead to Paul Goldschmidt in the eighth.
He starts Goldschmidt with a cutter that’s above the strike zone for ball one.
Buehler doubles up on the cutter, and this one is better. Goldschmidt fouls it off to even the count.
At 1-1, Buehler tries to go inside to jam Goldschmidt, but misses out over the plate. It’s far enough away that Goldschmidt takes for a strike, but it’s not where Buehler wanted the ball to end up. It does, however, set up a breaking ball off the plate. A sweeper is probably the best choice.
He instead elects to go with a high fastball. It’s not a terrible pitch, but it’s too high to induce a swing. The velocity is also just okay at 93 mph.
At 2-2, Buehler tries to backdoor a sinker, but misses too far outside to bring the count full. Goldschmidt hasn’t seen anything soft yet, so a curveball or slider in the zone might freeze him. With nobody on base and one out, it isn’t the end of the world if he walks him, but choosing a pitch he can confidently throw in the zone is probably the best course of action.
With the count full, it’s a cutter from Buehler that finds the middle of the plate and is taken right back up the middle for a base hit. Again, it’s not the worst pitch Buehler has ever thrown, but it’s one you expect many big league hitters to handle.
It’s pretty much the same as what we’ve seen from Buehler this season. He made some good pitches to Aaron Judge to escape the at-bat after being down 2-0, but his lack of command put him in bad spots consistently. While Buehler won’t be asked to handle many high leverage opportunities, I’d like to see him simplify his arsenal. Pick one of the slider and sweeper. Having fewer movement profiles might allow him to hone in his command. He’ll also have the luxury of only facing lineups one time, and doesn’t need several pitches to mix up looks.
As much as I wanted to see something different from the veteran and convince myself he can be a weapon out of the bullpen in the postseason, I’m not seeing much to suggest that will be the case.
