As we count down the final days of the year, SI writers are reflecting on "The Best Thing I Saw in 2024" and looking back at the most memorable moments they witnessed in their reporting this year.
For years, Walker Buehler had nagged Los Angeles Dodgers officials to let him spend the late innings of playoff games in the bullpen, preparing to be the hero. Why, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman finally asked, was he so obsessed with the idea of closing out a win?
“Look,” Buehler answered, “I’m arrogant enough that I want the picture at the end of the game.”
On Oct. 30, the Dodgers finally gave him his chance, and—pitching on one day of rest, the kind of feat not often seen in modern baseball—he gave them the final three outs of the decisive Game 5 of the World Series, a 7–6 win, to capture their second title in five years.
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As one of the wildest Fall Classic games in recent history unspooled—the New York Yankees stormed to a 5–0 lead, then unraveled defensively in the fifth inning to allow five unearned runs—Dodgers manager Dave Roberts realized he did not have the pitching to finish it. Starter Jack Flaherty had collected only four outs. The next five relievers could not go past an inning apiece. Roberts turned to righty Blake Treinen for seven outs, his longest outing since 2018. That left the ninth inning uncovered.
Meanwhile, Buehler was trying to force his way into the game. Nearly two years removed from his second Tommy John surgery, the 30-year-old former top prospect had just finished the worst season of his career, so bad that he took a month away from the team to try to recapture his delivery. But he has always sought the big moment, the weight of being needed, and in October, he had looked more like himself. He threw five scoreless innings in Game 3. As he watched Game 5 two days later, he thought about another Dodgers star starter who twice clinched October series in relief.
“I’ve gotten to play with Clayton [Kershaw] for six years, and that’s what he would have done,” Buehler says now. But Kershaw was unavailable, having missed the playoffs with a bone spur in his left big toe. All postseason, Buehler had tried to psych himself up by asking himself, Who else? Who else is going to go do this? So in the sixth, he persuaded Friedman to let him head out to the bullpen. “It just felt like what I was supposed to do,” Buehler says. On the way, he passed Kershaw, who told Buehler he loved him.
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When pitching coach Mark Prior phoned the bullpen to find out what in the heck was going on out there, Buehler lied that he had already thrown and felt fine. He hung up and picked up a baseball for the first time in two days. His warm-ups looked good. The fate of perhaps the most talented team in history—a team that boasted three former MVPs, including DH Shohei Ohtani, who would win his third one a month later—dangled by the twice-repaired ligament in Buehler’s elbow.
At 11:43 p.m., he trotted through the bullpen door. He fired 16 pitches, curveballs that dived and fastballs that blazed. The whole thing took eight minutes. Buehler, a smirk stretched across his face, opened his arms in a shrug as his teammates raced toward him. It was the greatest moment of his career, he says now. It was a throwback to an era when starting pitchers ruled the sport. And it was the defining image of the game.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Best 2024 Moments: Walker Buehler Craved the Lasting Image of World Series Glory.
