Nine months after helping his former team win the World Series, Walker Buehler will lead the host Boston Red Sox into the finale of a three-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Buehler (6-6, 5.72 ERA) spent the first seven seasons of his major league career with the Dodgers. He then joined the Red Sox on a guaranteed one-year, $21.05 million deal last offseason with a $25 million mutual option for 2026.
Although Buehler has had a disappointing 2025 season, he is 1-0 with a 3.00 ERA in his three July starts.
Sunday’s game will be the first time he has faced the Dodgers during his career. He received his 2024 World Series ring from several of his former teammates before Los Angeles beat Boston 5-2 on Friday night in the series opener.
“It’ll be interesting,” Buehler said. “I think playing against your old team is one thing, but playing against them when you haven’t seen ’em since you won the whole thing is a whole different thing. … At the end of the day, we’ll still all kind of be close or whatever for forever, and have some really good memories of October.”
Buehler, a right-hander, went 1-1 with a 3.60 ERA in 15 innings last postseason. He earned a win and a save in his two World Series appearances, and he closed out the World Series with a scoreless ninth inning against the New York Yankees for the save in Game 5.
Los Angeles selected Buehler out of Vanderbilt in the first round (24th overall) of the 2015 MLB Draft and called him up for a late September major league debut two years later.
“They’re probably the model for a lot of people in the way that modern baseball should be done, and I was very fortunate to be drafted and developed and spend so much time there (with the Dodgers),” Buehler said. “I attribute a lot of the success I have had to them and how they handled and treated me.”
Buehler will be opposed by righty Dustin May (6-6, 4.73), who will be pitching against the Red Sox for the first time in his career. May is coming off of a 5-2 victory over the visiting Minnesota Twins last Monday, when he scattered five hits and three walks with four strikeouts in 4 2/3 scoreless innings.
After losing Friday’s contest, the Red Sox overcame an early two-run deficit to earn a 4-2 victory on Saturday. Garrett Crochet gave up home runs to two of the first three batters he faced – a 414-footer to superstar Shohei Ohtani and a 386-foot shot to Teoscar Hernandez — but then he settled in and recorded 10 strikeouts in six innings.
“He’s amazing,” Boston’s Roman Anthony said of Crochet. “Every outing it’s just like you expect him to go out there and have a quality start because of how good he is and how hard he works. I can’t say enough good things about that guy and it’s so fun playing defense when he’s on the bump.”
Jarren Duran was Boston’s offensive star on Saturday. Duran, who has been mentioned in trade rumors, had three extra-base hits, including a two-run triple that tied the game in the second inning.
“He’s seeing the ball well,” Boston manager Alex Cora said of Duran. “He’s balanced. He’s hitting all over the place. We liked that matchup against (Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw), we really did. So just doing his thing. When he’s controlling the strike zone, good things happen.”