Buehler flirts with no-hitter in Dodgers rout of D’backs

PHOENIX – Let’s be honest. Walker Buehler is the ace of the Dodgers right now, and it’s really not that close. Nobody else on this staff, which is full of Cy Young winners, is nearly as consistently dominant as number 21. And, true to form, Buehler pitched one of his most dominant performances of the season on Saturday against the Arizona Diamondbacks. He went seven no-hit innings before faltering a bit in the eighth and giving up two singles to end his night. But for those seven innings, it was pure brilliance, leading the Dodgers to an easy 9-3 win at Chase Field.

Buehler Brilliant

Prior to that eighth inning, the only baserunners that Buehler allowed were a couple of walks and hit batsman. Other than that, he was perfect. Using all his pitches to equal effectiveness, Buehler got a lot of weak contact from the D’back batters, and struck out eleven.

It looked very much like a no-hitter in the making until David Peralta ripped a solid single to center field to lead off the eighth inning. Buehler struck out Pavin Smith to record the first out of the inning after that, but once Nick Ahmed sneaked a ball under the glove of Gavin Lux at short, Buehler’s night was over. In a bit of hard luck, Buehler got charged with two earned runs after reliever Mitch White allowed both baserunners to score. So, the final line for Buehler doesn’t look as great on paper as it actually was. His final tallies: 7.1 IP, 2 H, 2 ER, 11 K.

Offense Clicking Big Time

Buehler’s brilliance was amazing to watch, but the outcome of this game was never really much in doubt. The Dodgers, whose bats had been little quiet the last few nights, came alive big time on Saturday. Staring with Mookie Betts‘s leadoff double on the second pitch of the game, the Dodgers were all over D’backs starter Matt Peacock. After a couple of outs followed Betts’s knock, Will Smith put the Dodgers on the board with a two-run jack to right. He blistered a 2-1 sinker to the opposite field, and it just did clear the fence for Smith’s eighth homer of the season.

The good news about the Dodgers on Saturday is that they scored up and down the lineup in multiple innings. They tacked on a third run in the second inning when Gavin Lux, continuing his hot-hitting ways, ripped a two-out single to left to score Zach McKinstry from second. McKinstry’s return to the lineup can’t be underestimated as it gives the Dodgers so much more length in their batting order than when he isn’t around. He was 1-3 on Saturday with two walks, and that kind of OBP is always going to end up with runs sooner or later.

Turner and Taylor with big blows

The fatal blow to the D’backs’ hopes of getting back into the game came in the sixth. After Snakes reliever Kevin Ginkel walked the bases loaded, Justin Turner came to the plate with two out. With nowhere to put him, Ginkel gave Turner a slider that caught a little too much of the plate. In a nice piece of hitting, Turner went the other way with the pitch, shooting it into the right centerfield gap. Thanks to a little bit of a bobble in the outfield, Turner had himself a bases-clearing double, and suddenly the score was now 6-0.

Even though the game was pretty much over after the Turner double, the Dodgers continued to pour it on. Mookie Betts hit a sac fly to score a run in the seventh, and then in the eighth, Chris Taylor hit a two-run bomb to make it 9-0. Taylor, who was acquired by the Dodgers in a trade with Seattle exactly five years ago, must have been very gratified to round the bases on this one, his tenth long fly of the year. The Dodgers do have their high-priced free agents, to be sure, but the beating heart of this team will always be these smart acquisitions like Turner and Taylor, both of whom came up big in this win.

However, as fantastic as the offense was, this night belonged to Walker Buehler. He goes to 7-0 in 2021, and drops his ERA to 2.38. His ERA lately has been even better: 1.36 over the last seven starts. “I felt pretty good with what I was doing,” said Buehler after the game. “I threw the curve ball pretty well… the curve ball and the cutter, I guess. So yeah, it was a good one.”

I’ll say.

The Dodgers finish up in the desert on Sunday afternoon before heading back to California for a big series against the Padres in San Diego. Tony Gonsolin gets the ball for the Dodgers on Sunday, facing lefty Alex Young as the Dodgers go for a series sweep. The Dodgers, now 43-27, continue to play well in June, winning nine of the last eleven games. The Dodgers have feasted on inferior opponents in this stretch. Now comes a time for testing. Their next three series are against three teams with their eye on October: the Padres, the Cubs, and the Giants. It figures to be epic. Don’t touch that dial, Dodger fans; we’ve got some good baseball coming up!