Whicker: Dodgers’ Walker Buehler is flying toward the playoffs in a single bound

LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers have not gone totally hip. They are allowing their regular starting pitchers to actually pitch the first inning, contrary to trend.

But they did see two different fellows handle the first two innings Wednesday night. It was Walker Buehler in the second through sixth, after an identity stealer who resembled Walker Buehler stumbled through the first.

Buehler gave up two runs in the first inning and threw 36 pitches. Although Buehler claimed he didn’t notice, lefty Zac Rosscup was warming.

“You don’t want him going into the 40s there,” Manager Dave Roberts said. A strikeout of Ryan McMahon got Buehler through it, and it could have been far worse: The first three Rockies were all on base, and after two outs Ian Desmond cracked a first-pitch, two-run single.

“I was trying to be Superman, doing a bit too much,” Buehler said. Apparently, the phone booth works in reverse, too. Capeless and earthbound, Buehler overwhelmed the Rockies for the next five innings, and Yasiel Puig boomed a three-run shot off Scott Oberg in the eighth.

The Dodgers won 5-2, swept the three-game series, nailed down a 2½-game lead with nine games left, and began to anticipate the championship month.

“We’re playing our best baseball at the right time,” Roberts said, knowing that last year’s Dodgers didn’t need to do that and got to Game 7 of the World Series anyway.

“I’d rather give up two runs in the first inning of a game like this than have it happen in the playoffs,” Buehler said.

Given the intermittence of this season, it’s hard to imagine the Dodgers will float into October without a bump. If they make it, they will be as well-armed as they’ve been since they started winning this division in 2013.

They can roll out Buehler, Clayton Kershaw, Hyun-jin Ryu and Rich Hill, with any number of Plan Bs behind them. And Buehler keeps ascending as his gas gauge keeps descending. He struck out a career-high 12 in this game and didn’t give up a hit after David Dahl’s single in the third.

Buehler actually had to deal with two-on-and-no-out situation in that inning because he had erred on D.J. LeMahieu’s grounder to lead off. “I punted it to the third-base line, which was a little embarrassing,” he said.

But he struck out the struggling Nolan Arenado with high-90s stuff on the outside half, and then fanned Gerardo Parra and handled Desmond’s comebacker cleanly.

Buehler was pitching similarly in the first half of the season. Then he hurt a rib on June 8 and didn’t pitch again until June 28. He said it took another month to feel like a bird or a plane again, and he had to readjust mechanically and get in sync with his catchers.

Starting on July 31, Buehler has made 10 starts and exceeded 100 pitches in six of them, including Wednesday’s. In that span, he is 4-2 with a 1.86 ERA and has 67 strikeouts in 62-2/3 innings.

In the first inning Arenado came up with bases loaded and no out, and Buehler got behind 2-and-1. He threw 98 for a strike, threw 99 for a foul ball, and then locked up the MVP candidate with an 86-mph slider.

“I was just a little too excited in that inning,” Buehler said. “The later you get into the series, the bigger the games get. They always talk about a team getting hot at the right time, and it’s always somebody. I’m glad that we’re playing like that team right now.”

Since the Dodgers were swept at home by St. Louis in late August, they are 18-7. They have won their past four series against contending teams. They gave the Rockies six runs in these three games.

They also continue to flaunt their numbers. In the seventh inning, they used Puig, Joc Pederson, Max Muncy and David Freese as pinch-hitters. Colorado manager Bud Black had Oberg pitch to Puig with first base open, even though Puig is a .301 hitter against right-handers like Oberg and a .216 hitter against lefties. But Oberg had given up one home run to a right-handed hitter all season.

And Oberg made a nice pitch here. It was sliding down and out of the strike zone when Puig reached out and muscled it. It was Puig’s 22nd homer of the year and sixth in six days.

But it was almost as significant that Dozier, flailing to find his legs in the National League, came up in the fifth inning and stroked a double that scored Kiké Hernandez from first. That tied it at 2-2.

“This was emblematic of our ballclub,” Roberts said. So was the S on Buehler’s chest, which, for the moment, still means September.

Buehler’s dozen. pic.twitter.com/HUj7VHyUEE

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) September 20, 2018