Walker Buehler’s season has been quite a grind, but at least he ended the first half with a pair of solid outings.
The veteran right-hander aims to build off those performances Monday when the Boston Red Sox visit the Philadelphia Phillies for the first of three games.
Buehler (6-6, 6.12 ERA) was an All-Star, a Cy Young Award contender and World Series champion during a long stint with the Los Angeles Dodgers. But he has struggled this season upon signing a one-year, $21 million deal with the Red Sox.
After posting an 11.07 ERA during a difficult June, Buehler has authored a pair of respectable outings this month. He gave up two earned runs in five innings in a win over the Washington Nationals on July 5 and then yielded three runs in six frames in a no-decision against the Tampa Bay Rays on July 10.
“It’s nice to go through a week of prep, the five days or whatever, and not feel like I should just retire,” Buehler said after facing Tampa Bay. “I don’t think I’m going to retire anytime soon, but you get into some really dark places and that’s what happens.”
Buehler will be opposed Monday by Philadelphia ace and fellow righty Zack Wheeler (9-3, 2.36), who is one of the leading candidates for the NL Cy Young Award. He was extremely consistent during the first half of the season, although he is coming off one of his worst outings of the campaign.
Wheeler allowed four runs and six hits over six innings in a 5-4 loss to the San Diego Padres on July 12. He went on to voluntarily skip the All-Star Game in order to rest up for the second half of the season.
“Baseball is hard, and some days you’re gonna have days like today, and it stinks,” Wheeler said. “But it is baseball at the end of the day, and you’re in the big leagues, so you’ll get hit around a little bit sometimes. And it’s part of it.”
Wheeler has made three career starts against Boston, going 2-1 with a 2.75 ERA. Buehler, meanwhile, is 1-1 with a 6.48 ERA in four lifetime games (three starts) against Philadelphia.
The Phillies are coming off a series loss against the Los Angeles Angels. The teams split their first two games over the weekend before Philadelphia absorbed an 8-2 defeat on Sunday.
Otto Kemp hit a home run for the Phillies, but the team only managed six hits overall in the series finale.
“I think we just had a lot of weak contact,” the rookie utilityman said.
Boston came out of the All-Star break with a pair of losses against the Cubs in Chicago, but the team recovered to post a 6-1 triumph on Sunday afternoon.
Wilyer Abreu hit a pair of home runs Sunday after going 1-for-12 with six strikeouts over his previous five games.
“He’s got a compact swing,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora, whose team closed the first half of the season on a 10-game winning streak. “There’s a few things he’s still working on, trying to get better. But we’ll take him every day in the outfield.”
–Field Level Media
