Walker Buehler Returning To Spot Of Infamous World Series Incident

Walker Buehler leads the Boston Red Sox against the New York Yankees in their first meeting of the season on Friday.

Before joining the Red Sox, Buehler spent the entirety of his career with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Despite not being direct rivals with the Yankees, Buehler has some personal history that he could draw on for his start.

Buehler started the first game of the World Series at Yankee Stadium. The Dodgers won Game 3, and the right-hander pitched admirably, providing five innings of shutout baseball.

His issue with Yankee Stadium came before the game, though. He explained his gripe via the Just Baseball Show. “They turned off the entire stadium lights, including the bullpens, from 7:02 until 7:13. They did not turn the lights back on until the Yankees went onto the field,” Buehler said.

He went on to explain how, because of the lighting, he couldn’t warm up in his usual manner. The righty threw warm-up pitches in the dark bullpen without a catcher and carried that frustration onto the field, complaining to the umpire about the situation, “They got to fix this [expletive] for tomorrow.”

Buehler could start the series on a high note for the Red Sox by providing a lengthy outing. Just two of the last eight starters have completed more than five innings for Boston, placing a heavy burden on the bullpen.

Since returning from the injured list, Buehler has a 4.85 ERA over 13 innings, but his stuff has been solid. His velocity was up across the board against Atlanta in his last appearance, his four-seam fastball even reached 97 MPH.