Echoes of a past great in L.A.’s Game 3 win
Buehler strikes out 10, pitches Dodgers to Series lead
ARLINGTON, Texas — Walker Buehler was dominant for Los Angeles. Just like Orel Hershiser during the Dodgers’ last title run.
Buehler struck out 10 in six innings in a pulsating performance, and Los Angeles beat the Tampa Bay Rays 6-2 on Friday night for a 2-1 World Series lead.
Justin Turner homered in the first inning against a surprisingly hittable Charlie Morton, who was chased in the fifth.
Austin Barnes, the Dodgers’ No. 9 hitter and catcher, added a sixth-inning homer against John Curtiss and became just the second player to drive in runs with both a homer and a sacrifice bunt in the same Series game.
Los Angeles overwhelmed Tampa Bay in all phases, leaving the Rays’ scuffling offense with a .206 average.
The Dodgers have out-homered the Rays 7-4 in the Series and opponents 25-16 in the postseason. Barnes also drove in a run with a squeeze, the second player with RBIs on a bunt and home run in a Series game behind Héctor López of New York Yankees in Game 5 of 1961.
Steely-eyed like Hershiser, who won MVP honors of the 1988 Series, Buehler has supplanted Clayton Kershaw as the Dodgers’ ace. He allowed three of Tampa Bay’s four hits and walked one.
The 26-year-old right-hander has allowed one run in 13 Series innings that include seven scoreless in Game 3 against Boston two years ago. He improved to 2-0 with a 1.80 ERA in four postseason starts that include the win over Atlanta in Game 6 of the NL Championship Series last weekend.
“I’ve taken the failures that I’ve had and tried to learn from them a little bit,” Buehler said. “Obviously our team gave me a cushion early so I could be aggressive.”
Buehler didn’t allow a hit until Manuel Margot’s one-out double in the fifth. Willy Adames then doubled home Margot.
“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. He’s got a really special fastball that gets on hitters and commands it well.”
Buehler became the first pitcher in the Series with 10 or more strikeouts in six or fewer innings.
“That might have been the best
I’ve ever seen him,” Barnes said.
Morton, a right-hander who turns 37 on Nov. 12, had entered unbeaten in seven straight postseason decisions. But he allowed five runs and seven hits in 4⅓ innings — more than the four runs total he gave up in his previous five postseason 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 94.8 mph fastball with a 1-2 count and driving the ball 397 feet over the left-field wall. Turner’s home run was the Dodgers’ team record 24th this postseason and the 11th of Turner’s postseason career over 69 games, tying the team record set by Duke Snider over 36 games with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers from 1954 to 1959.
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 Ji-Man Choi.
Mookie Betts followed with a two-out RBI single that made it 5-0, and Barnes homered off John Curtiss in the sixth. Five of the Dodgers’ first six runs scored with two outs.
GOING DEEP: With a ninth-inning home run, Randy Arozarena of the Rays tied Barry Bonds (2002), Carlos Beltrán (2004) and Nelson Cruz (2011) for homers in a postseason and set the rookie record for hits with 23, one more than Derek Jeter in 1996.