Dodgers @ Yankees – 2024 World Series Game 3: Buehler looks to lead LA to 3-0 series lead

The Dodgers held on by the slimmest of margins in Game 2’s 4-2 win, despite an exhausting, gut-wrenching ninth inning.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto was fantastic, out-dueling Carlos Rodon and even matching the performance of Gerrit Cole‘s Game 1 outing. He looked the part of the ace the Dodgers paid for this offseason, allowing just one run on one hit over 6.1 innings against a very dangerous Yankees offense. It turns out the offense needed that type of outing from Yamamoto, as they scored four runs off Rodon through 3.1 innings but were held scoreless for the remainder of the game. New York mounted a ninth inning comeback attempt that looked inevitable throughout the buildup, but ultimately scratched just one run across. Blake Treinen looked very shaky for the first time this postseason, allowing one run on three hits, including a HBP and a wild pitch. Alex Vesia came in with the bases loaded and two outs, and recorded a one-pitch save to secure the Game 2 victory.

Tonight, Walker Buehler will be making his first start of the World Series, coming off a great performance against the Mets. The right-handed Clarke Schmidt will take the ball for the Yankees, looking to prevent them from going into a 3-0 hole.

	5:08 P.M.		New York
DH	Ohtani (L)	2B	Torres
RF	Betts	RF	Soto (L)
1B	Freeman (L)	CF	Judge
LF	T. Hernández	DH	Stanton
3B	Muncy (L)	3B	Chisholm Jr. (L)
C	Smith	SS	Volpe
2B	Lux (L)	1B	Rizzo (L)
CF	K. Hernández	C	Trevino
SS	Edman (S)	LF	Verdugo (L)
P	Buehler (R)	P	Schmidt (R)

Tommy Edman is 4-8 in the World Series with one home run and two doubles, determined to not let Freddie Freeman win WS MVP should they win it all. Freeman has a 1.556 OPS through two games, with three hits in nine at-bats including the walk-off grand slam and another homer in Game 2. Max Muncy is 0-6 with three strikeouts coming off a fantastic NLCS, so he’ll look to get things going tonight against Schmidt. Mookie Betts and Teoscar Hernández accompany Freeman and Edman as the players with multiple hits through two games.

Shohei Ohtani injured his shoulder sliding into second base in Game 2, and the injury has been reported as a subluxation which is essentially a partial dislocation. While obviously concerning, it’s his left shoulder which is significantly less important than the right, and will likely just be a matter of pain tolerance for him. His right arm is the lead arm in his swing, which drives the swing and guides the bat to the ball. He obviously throws the ball right-handed as well, but that is irrelevant this year. He creates value just by being in the lineup, but if the injury alters his approach it could actually benefit his game right now. He’s historically shown the ability to go to all fields with his swing, and leaning into that when being pitched low or away could result in more production. Just maybe don’t expect any stolen bases.

Juan Soto has been a monster this postseason, with an OPS of 1.160 over 11 games, continuing his performance into the World Series. He has three hits in seven at-bats including a solo home run in Game 2, has two walks and is yet to strike out. Every single at-bat against him is painful as he won’t chase a pitch, and seemingly only gets out when there are two strikes and he has to hit a pitch he isn’t looking for. Aaron Judge is 1-9 with six strikeouts so far, and it feels impossible that performance continues. The approach will likely be to keep spinning the ball to him until he shows the ability to either lay off them completely or crush a mistake which he hasn’t done yet. Austin Wells is 1-8 with three strikeouts and will be on the bench today as Jose Trevino starts.

Also Anthony Rizzo is 1-5 with two walks and two HBP which is ridiculous considering his performance this season and the state of his ability at the plate at this point in his career. There is zero reason for Rizzo to see pitches out of the zone, let alone four in one plate appearance.

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Here’s how Schmidt and Buehler performed throughout both of their shortened seasons.

Schmidt was limited to just 16 starts this season with a lat strain that kept him out for over three months, but was great when he was on the mound with a 2.85 ERA and 1.18 WHIP in total. He made five starts in the regular season after returning from injury, where he had a 3.65 ERA, 3.69 FIP, and a 1.30 WHIP with 26 strikeouts to ten walks in 24.2 innings pitched. He’s thrown a total of 9.1 innings this postseason, most recently in Game 3 of the ALCS against the Guardians. He allowed two earned runs over 4.2 innings, allowing five hits and two walks with two strikeouts, and had a very similar outing against the Royals in the ALDS, also going 4.2 innings while allowing two earned runs. Hardly anyone on the Dodgers has seen Schmidt with Ohtani seeing him just a few times and homering off of him once.

Schmidt lives outside the zone quite often, with just roughly 40% (near the 25th percentile) of his pitches ending up in the strike zone. This can be a good strategy, but now and then you run into teams that will make your life difficult if you’re not willing to come into the zone more often. His stuff is good, and he limits hard contact in the zone so he should probably look to get ahead of hitters and trust his stuff, as handing out free passes against this offense is asking for trouble. The Dodgers didn’t walk against Cole or Rodon, so Schmidt’s gameplan should be similar to theirs (although it didn’t necessarily work out for Rodon).

He had quite pronounced splits in 2023, with a 1.65 WHIP, 4.85 FIP, and 18.0% strikeout rate to an 8.4% walk rate against left-handed batters, compared to a 1.10 WHIP, 4.05 FIP, and a 24.9% strikeout rate to 4.9% walk rate against right-handed batters. The splits are essentially gone this season, striking out nearly a third of the lefties he faced, although with an increased walk rate to accompany it. He throws four pitches, and more or less he’ll throw all of them to left and right-handed batters. He leans on a 92 MPH cutter as his primary offering, throwing it 35% of the time, sometimes favoring it against lefties. He also throws a sinker 21% of the time that sits just above 94 MPH, resulting in two different variations of “fastballs”. He has a knuckle-curve and a sweeper that sit in the mid-80’s, with the curve sweeping and dropping significantly more than your average curveball, with the sweeper moving more like a traditional slider.

Buehler has now made two starts this postseason, his first being a relative shelling in San Diego that he wasn’t necessarily deserving of, resulting in six earned runs over 5.0 innings. As I noted in my NLCS Game 3 preview, “He gave up a very legitimate home run to Fernando Tatis Jr., but it’s very possible that Buehler could’ve had a five or six inning start with two or fewer earned runs. Instead, it was five innings and six earned runs. Buehler has struggled mightily this year and he deserved a much better performance from his defense during that outing. Regardless, it’s in the past and relatively inconsequential now.” It did indeed turn out to be inconsequential, as he proceeded to have a great start against the Mets, going four innings allowing no runs on three hits and two walks with six strikeouts. It wasn’t perfect, but it gave the Dodgers time to grab the lead, and his stuff looked the best it had the whole year. His 18 whiffs generated were a season-high and his pitches were really moving in the cold New York weather. He’ll get another start in similar cold October air, a situation in which he’s thrived his whole career.

Dustin wrote about Buehler’s fastball issues (and issues in general) prior to his NLCS Game 3 start, looking into things that he’d probably need to address before facing the Mets.

“Buehler’s disappearing whiffs have been the cause of his struggles, and the reasoning for it still isn’t 100% clear — there’s only so much one can deduce from publicly available data. His fastball is bad and he should probably throw it less than the 43% he threw it against the Padres a week ago because the Mets are one of the most productive offenses against the 4-seam fastball.”

The same applies for the Yankees, but to an even more daunting level, as they’ve been the best fastball hitting team in the sport. He then recapped that NLCS outing the following day, looking at how Buehler did change his arsenal and usage, and how much it benefitted him.

“As for the fastball usage, Buehler threw it just 27% of the time in Game 3. The average velocity was actually down 1.2 MPH from the 95 MPH mark in the regular season and down 1.1 from his NLDS start against the Padres. The biggest difference? The spin rate. His average 4-seam spin rate on Wednesday night was 2,365 RPM, up from 2,288 in the NLDS and 2,280 in the regular season. It still wasn’t his best pitch — far from it. But for Game 3, it was acceptable. This could be the plan for Buehler for the remainder of this season (however long that might be) and something he can do going forward.”

Finally, he also wrote about how the Dodgers’ pitch usage changes have been working thus far against the Yankees, and what that might look like from Buehler.

“Buehler is in a transformation stage as a pitcher. The playoffs and World Series isn’t the ideal time to attempt this kind of transformation, but if anyone is going to be successful with it, it’s Buehler. He has shown up in big games in the past and Dave Roberts is a true believer in Buehler’s ability — even this version of him.”

He’s thrown 88.2 innings in the postseason, with a 3.25 ERA and 1.18 WHIP with 107 strikeouts, and two of his best career postseason outings came in the World Series. 2018 Game 3 against the Red Sox he threw seven shutout innings allowing just two hits with seven strikeouts in the 18-inning game the Dodgers ended up winning. 2020 World Series Game 3, he threw six innings against the Rays, allowing only one earned run on three hits and one walk, with ten strikeouts. He’ll look to keep his record of Game 3 World Series performances rolling tonight.

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Not much pregame news. Brent Honeywell Jr. did speak with the media in the spot that the next day’s starter generally speaks, but claims he doesn’t know if he’s starting tomorrow. The bullpen game usage will likely depend on how Buehler fares today.

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First pitch is at 5:08 PT on FOX.