Red Sox's Walker Buehler Makes Brutally Honest Admission About 2025 Playoffs

Walker Buehler's identity as a big-league pitcher is closely tied to his success in the postseason.

In his storied career with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Buehler put up a 3.04 ERA in the playoffs, including a 0.47 mark in the World Series. It's also how he earned a $21.05 million salary with the Boston Red Sox this season despite a 5.38 regular season ERA in 2024.

But for all of his October prowess, Buehler hasn't been an asset to the Red Sox in the regular season. He took a step forward with a two-earned-run, five-plus inning outing on Saturday, but his ERA only dropped to 6.25 in the win over the Washington Nationals.

Buehler struggled in a major way in June, and he knows it could be costly in a professional sense. After picking up the win on Saturday, his sixth of the season, he made a candid comment about his candidacy for a playoff start, should the Red Sox get there.

“I don’t think if we played a playoff game tomorrow that I would be one of the three that’s going to go out there (in the rotation),” Buehler said, per MassLive's Chris Cotillo. “And that’s something that has kind of carried me throughout my whole career. Still a lot of work to be done and stuff that I want to figure out and how I can help this team late in the year."

The Red Sox would undoubtedly hand the ball to Garrett Crochet for Game 1 of a playoff series. Then, the next two pitchers who have thrown the ball well of late are Lucas Giolito (0.83 ERA in his last five starts) and Brayan Bello (2.85 ERA in his last seven).

Of course, in that scenario, Buehler could still be a weapon out of the bullpen, as he demonstrated by recording the last three outs of the 2024 World Series.

At age 30, Buehler knows his All-Star career is at a crossroads. He's been remarkably open about his struggles and clearly wants to help the Red Sox make it back to October, somewhere they haven't been since 2021.

Perhaps Saturday's outing was finally a step in the right direction, but there's a long way still to go. And as far as pitching in the playoffs go, the Red Sox still have to make it.