Buehler 'back to the drawing board' after rough start in Seattle

SEATTLE – Walker Buehler and the Red Sox seemed to be, at the very least, a marriage of convenience that could work for both sides.

With a one-year, $21.05 million contract, Buehler could re-establish his value before becoming a free agent again following the 2025 season. And a veteran with World Series experience would certainly bolster Boston’s young starting rotation.

At least to this point, the union hasn’t worked out how either side had planned.

Buehler’s frustrating season to date reached its low point on Tuesday night at T-Mobile Park, where the righty was shelled for eight hits and eight runs over 3 1/3 innings, swelling his ERA to 5.95 in his team’s 8-0 loss to the Mariners.

The fact that the Red Sox were riding a six-game winning streak -- their longest in two years -- only made a rough night all the more frustrating for Buehler.

“It just sucks to fail on that kind of level with kind of where our team is at and how we've been feeling about ourselves and starting to play really good baseball,” said Buehler. “And to be an older guy that was brought in here to kind of try and help lead and to perform the way I have been, it’s tough and embarrassing.”

A grand slam by Cal Raleigh on a first-pitch changeup punctuated Seattle’s five-run second inning. While on some nights an early deficit like that could be weathered, that was not the case on an evening the Boston bats generated just two singles against Bryan Woo and two Mariners relievers.

Buehler’s lack of command was obvious even before Seattle’s likely All-Star catcher mashed his 27th homer of the season.

By the time Raleigh stepped in for that game-turning sequence, Buehler had already walked four while recording just four outs.

“Obviously, throughout my career, I’ve thrown strikes and done all that, so to walk the amount of guys I did and then to give up eight, it’s just not what we’re looking for,” Buehler said.

This was the second time in Buehler’s last three starts he’s gone fewer than four innings, and the third time in his last four trips to the mound he’s given up five earned runs or more.

“We have to figure it out because when you’re that ahead in counts, we have to be able to finish them,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “We’ll take a look to see what happened today and we’ll figure it out.”

The grand slam by Raleigh came with two outs.

“There were eight at-bats where we had them with two strikes and they got on base,” Cora said “Walks, singles, doubles, obviously a changeup on 0-0 to Raleigh. That was a hanging changeup. We were one pitch away from getting out of that inning and it just didn’t happen.”

In his last 28 starts dating back to the start of the ‘24 season, Buehler is 6-11 with a 5.63 ERA.

Judging by what he did last October, when he fired 10 scoreless innings over his last three outings and threw the final pitch of the World Series for the Dodgers, Buehler seemed capable of a rebound ‘25 if he could stay healthy.

Though Buehler was sidelined from May 2-20 with right shoulder bursitis, that was a more precautionary shutdown given his injury history.

Buehler looks at his struggles this season as completely different than his inconsistent initiation to the Red Sox.

“I feel like I'm still physically in a pretty good spot,” said Buehler. “I think mentally, in terms of where I feel like I'm at when I'm out there, it’s actually pretty good relative to last year. Last year I just really struggled with even wanting to kind of be out there. And this year, I'm super excited to be here and want to be really good here and want to help this team and … and my inability to do that is tough.”

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With 87 games left in the season, Buehler still has time to be what the Red Sox envisioned when they signed him.

His next start is likely to be in Anaheim in six days.

“Kind of back to the drawing board a little bit,” said Buehler.