SAN FRANCISCO — Walker Buehler’s season already was heading for another disappointing turn Friday night after he gave up three runs in four innings against the San Francisco Giants.
By the end of the Dodgers’ 7-2 loss, however, Buehler’s underwhelming statistical line was the least of the team’s worries.
The Dodgers announced that Buehler left the game early because of right elbow discomfort, explaining their decision to pull him after just four innings and 70 pitches.
It’s the latest troubling turn in what has been a turbulent start to Buehler’s season.
Before his early exit, the right-hander had shown flashes of dominance and glimpses of his old self, only to then misfire on a pitch, lose his cool over disagreements about the strike zone and ultimately succumb to more frustrating results, his ERA rising to 4.02 after 12 outings this season.
When he walked off the mound after the fourth inning, he didn’t show any signs of pain. But he never returned to the mound again, instead being replaced by Justin Bruihl to begin the fifth inning.
All week, a spotlight has followed Buehler, who has been in the midst of perhaps his worst career stretch with the Dodgers.
On Wednesday, Buehler threw a lengthy bullpen session in Chicago, then had an even longer chat with pitching coaches Mark Prior and Connor McGuiness.
On Thursday, manager Dave Roberts acknowledged the 27-year-old’s “confidence has been shaken a little bit” and said, while he still trusts the two-time All-Star, he had never seen him struggle quite like this.
Before the first pitch Friday, Roberts reiterated the sentiment.
“This is uncharted territory,” he said. “There’s been here or there (where he’s had a) not so good one. But what’s happened recently, this is uncharted territory. So we’re all getting through it together.”
After retiring the Giants in order in the first inning, Buehler ran into trouble in the second.
Joc Pederson hit a full-count fastball for a leadoff single. Evan Longoria snuck an RBI double inside the bag at third base two batters later.
Buehler’s next pitch was a center-cut curveball that Brandon Crawford hammered back up the middle, turning what had been an early one-run lead for the Dodgers into a quick 2-1 deficit.
The third inning was one of Buehler’s best of the season. He hit his spots with his fastball, got swings-and-misses with his breaking pitches, and struck out all three batters he faced.
The fourth inning also began with a strikeout — Buehler’s fifth in a row — before his night was derailed again.
In an 0-and-1 count to Darin Ruf, Buehler threw a slider that stayed over the inner half of the plate. Ruf turned on it, launching a solo blast to left.
Throughout the night, Buehler had seemed to disagree with home plate umpire Chris Conroy’s strike zone too, frustration that escalated into a verbal exchange between the two after a borderline call later in the fourth.
Prior came out to calm Buehler down, and the pitcher then ended the inning without any more damage.
It would prove to be Buehler’s final action of the night — his injury forcing Bruihl to enter the game in the fifth, when the Giants tacked on three runs to pull away for good.
The Dodgers’ lineup couldn’t do much in the defeat.
Chris Taylor hit and RBI double in the second inning and Gavin Lux launched a solo blast in the fifth, his first home run since the fifth game of the season. But that was all they could muster, being shut down for five-plus innings by Giants starter Jakob Junis, then shut out for the final four innings by the Giants’ bullpen after Junis left in the sixth inning because of a hamstring injury.
Weekend rotation set
Before Friday’s game, Roberts announced the team’s new rotation for the rest of this weekend, with Clayton Kershaw now slated to pitch Saturday and Julio Urías set to go Sunday.
Originally, those two were flipped. But Roberts said Kershaw felt ready to pitch Saturday, which will be six days removed from his minor-league rehab start last Sunday, and that the team felt Urias would benefit from an extra day of rest in the wake of the club’s recent 31-games-in-30-days stretch.
“It just seems like both players understood and agreed with it,” Roberts said.
Kimbrel rejoins team
Closer Craig Kimbrel rejoined the Dodgers on Friday after missing the week’s series Chicago following the birth of his second child, a boy named Joseph Watson. To make room for Kimbrel on the roster, the Dodgers optioned right-hander Mitch White to triple A.
