Walker Buehler pitched in the World Series like the Los Angeles Dodgers’ aces of old.
Think Sandy Koufax, Fernando Valenzuela and Orel Hershiser, all leaders of title runs.
Now Buehler has the Dodgers two wins from the championship that has eluded them since 1988.
Photo: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY
Buehler struck out 10 over six innings in a pulsating performance as Los Angeles beat the Tampa Bay Rays 6-2 on Friday for a 2-1 World Series lead.
“Being a big-game pitcher and really succeeding on this stage, there’s only a few guys currently and throughout history,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “He’s in some really elite company.”
Justin Turner homered in the first inning against a surprisingly hittable Charlie Morton, who was chased in the fifth.
Photo: AFP
Austin Barnes, the Dodgers’ No. 9 hitter and catcher, added a sixth-inning homer against John Curtiss.
He became just the second player to drive in runs with both a homer and a sacrifice bunt in the same World Series game.
He will probably remember the home run most.
Photo: Tim Heitman-USA TODAY
“It’s a cool little stat, but it’s not easy to barrel the ball up against all these really good pitchers,” Barnes said.
Los Angeles overwhelmed Tampa Bay in all phases, leaving the Rays’ scuffling offense with a .206 batting average and 11 runs in the series. The Rays’ .133 average (6 for 45) against Clayton Kershaw, Tony Gonsolin and Buehler is the lowest through three World Series games against a team’s starters since the Boston Red Sox held the Philadelphia Phillies to .129 in 1915, according to STATS.
Julio Urias, a hard-throwing Mexican left-hander in a Dodgers lineage dating to Valenzuela, is to start Game 4, with the first pitch scheduled for 8:08am today Taiwan time.
The Rays are to start Ryan Yarbrough, who relieved in Game 1.
Thirty-eight of 59 previous teams who won Game 3 for a 2-1 lead went on to take the title.
Barnes also drove in a run with a squeeze, the second player with RBIs on a bunt and home run in a World Series game behind Hector Lopez of New York Yankees in Game 5 of 1961.
Steely-eyed like Hershiser, who won MVP honors of the 1988 Series, Buehler has supplanted Kershaw as the Dodgers’ ace. He showed no indisposition from the blister on his right index finger that has bothered him.
“I’ve taken the failures that I’ve had and tried to learn from them a little bit,” Buehler said.
The 26-year-old right-hander started 15 of 21 batters with strikes and threw strikes on 67 of 93 pitches.
He did not allow a hit until Manuel Margot’s one-out double in the fifth. Willy Adames then drove in Margot with another double.
Tampa Bay’s only other hit off him was Austin Meadows’ leadoff single in the sixth.
“You can see the fastball just pop through the zone,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “Other than a few breaking balls here or there, it was very much a there it is, hit it approach. You totally understand and appreciate why he’s so talented.”
Rays batters were kept off balance by his mix of 59 four-seam fastballs, 14 knuckle-curves, 12 sliders and eight cut fastballs.
“That might have been the best I’ve ever seen him,” Barnes said.
Blake Treinen and Brusdar Graterol followed with a perfect inning apiece. Kenley Jansen finished the four-hitter, giving up a homer to Randy Arozarena.
Morton, a right-hander who turns 37 on Nov. 12, had entered unbeaten in seven straight post-season decisions, one shy of Orlando Hernandez’s record, including wins in five consecutive post-season starts.
However, he took the loss, allowing five runs and seven hits in 4-1/3 innings — more than the four runs total he gave up in his previous five post-season starts combined.
“I wasn’t particularly sharp,” Morton said. “I felt like I was able to get two strikes pretty quickly with a lot of guys and just not able to put them away.”
Turner put the Dodgers ahead on Morton’s 14th pitch, turning on a high 94.8mph (152.6kph) fastball with a 1-2 count and driving the ball over the left-field wall.
Los Angeles extended the lead to 3-0 in the third when Morton hit Corey Seager on a toe with a pitch, Turner doubled and Max Muncy drove a cutter into center for a two-run single.
After singles by Cody Bellinger and Joc Pederson, Barnes drove in a run with the safety squeeze to first baseman Choi Ji-man.
Mookie Betts followed with a two-out RBI single that made it 5-0 before Barnes homered in the sixth.
Five of the Dodgers’ first six runs scored with two outs, raising their total to nine of 18 in the Series and 50 of 87 in the post-season.
“Obviously there’s two outs, but you can still build an inning not giving away at-bats,” Betts said. “That’s how you win a World Series.”
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