ANAHEIM, Calif. — Over the course of four innings Monday night, Walker Buehler couldn’t find the plate.

After the game, he couldn’t find the words, or at least a logical explanation for happened to him on the mound — this season in general, and Monday night in particular.

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In the Red Sox’ 9-5 loss to the Los Angeles Angels, Buehler issued a career-high seven walks — including four in the first inning alone, two with the bases loaded — and left with an ERA of 6.29, the worst for any American League pitcher with 50 or more innings pitched.

“I think we can keep trying different things and looking at different stuff,” said Buehler, “or this mix or that mix and at the end of the day, if you don’t execute and throw strikes, you really don’t have a chance.

“I feel like a broken record. It’s embarrassing. It’s just not who I want to be as a baseball player. Obviously, I’d rather get whacked around than do that. Somehow this year, I’ve managed to do all the negative things you can. We’ll keep working, but obviously, it’s just tough to let down our team.”

Buehler had been gifted a 3-0 lead before he took the mound. But he allowed a leadoff homer to Zach Neto and it was straight downhill from there. The Angels sent 11 men to the plate in the first and five scored. Of those 11, six either reached base via a walk or hit batsman.

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After the first, some tweaks improved things somewhat. He still walked three more over his final three innings, but he didn’t allow another run. Still, with his pitch count at 94 pitches, he left 15 more outs to a bullpen that was utilized heavily over the weekend.

The seven walks were the most in any game over his career for Buehler. To put his night into context, he became the first Red Sox pitcher in the expansion era with at least four walks and two hit batsman since Kyle Barraclough, who achieved a level of franchise infamy with his relief appearance on Aug. 28, 2023.

“The ball’s coming out of my hand at times really well,” said Buehler, “and at times, I just lose all sight of what the ball’s doing. It’s tough. This organization and our team has given me every opportunity to try and contribute and help. Every thought and every pitch mix, pitch design, pitch execution, drill, throwing...everybody’s done everything they can except for me.”

Buehler vowed to revisit his delivery and mechanics to achieve more consistency.

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Manager Alex Cora, while acknowledging the obvious struggles of his starter, seemed to hint that Buehler would retain his spot in the rotation.

“We’ll talk about it,” said Cora. “But the second and third inning were really good. The velocity was up and the movement of the pitches were great. There’s some things he needs to do better, but he’ll be ready for the next one.”

In time, the Sox might have some options. But currently, Hunter Dobbins is on the IL and Tanner Houck, in Worcester, is about to make just his second rehab start after missing more than a month.

But Buehler conceded he’s worried about maintaining his place in the rotation.

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“Yeah, I think you have to,” he said. “At some point, there’s 26 guys that are hopefully going to help this team make the playoffs and if you’re not one of them, I don’t think it really matter what you’ve done in your past. Obviously, I’m a guy that’s open to doing whatever needs to be done.

“I’m a starting pitcher and have been a starting pitcher my whole life and I don’t necessarily think that changing that is going to somehow magically fix everything. But I certainly would like to figure it out and go for five, six, seven, eight, nine innings and help this team win.”

Interesting, Cora and Buehler gave vastly different answers when asked about the pitcher’s health.

When Cora was questioned whether he was convinced that Buehler was healthy, he responded without hesitation: “One hundred percent.”

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But minutes later, when Buehler was asked whether he was pitching through anything physically, he cryptically answered: “I don’t want to talk about that.”

It was that kind of night. It was obvious that the Sox can’t continue to have Buehler pitch as he did in his latest outing.

However, just how to fix what’s wrong, and whether that might involve an injury produced either no answers, or conflicting ones.

Read the original article on MassLive.