Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Walker Buehler is continuing his trend of saying the right things to the media after failing to do the job on the mound.

Buehler didn’t actually allow a run to cross the plate during his outing against the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday night, but there was traffic in each of the first four innings. And after putting the first two runners on base in a 1-0 game in the top of the fith, manager Alex Cora decided to give Buehler the hook.

Some veterans in Buehler’s position might have protested the decision, but the veteran admitted he hadn’t earned the right to keep pitching. Still, at some point, one has to wonder how much longer the Red Sox can put up with his struggles.

When asked about the manager’s decision to yank him from the game at only 76 pitches, Buehler, who ended up taking two earned runs, said he understood completely.

“At some point, the leash I’m given has been earned,” Buehler said, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive. “I think they did the right thing in coming to get me before the Henderson at-bat. Our bullpen has been great. For me personally, I think everything went according to plan until the fifth. You go double, four-pitch walk. The way I’ve been throwing it, it all kind of makes sense.”

Buehler now sports an ERA of 5.40 in 22 starts as a Red Sox, a brutal return on the team’s one-year, $21.05 million investment. And if there’s one issue that has threatened his job security most of all, it’s the walks.

“It’s (expletive) embarrassing, man,” Buehler said, per Cotillo. “I think the last time I walked this many in a season, I threw 207 innings. It just sucks.”

In just 110 innings, Buehler has now set a new career-high with 54 walks. As he alluded to, in 2021, when he threw 207 2/3 innings and finished fourth in National League Cy Young voting, he walked 52.

The Red Sox don’t have too many options to put in Buehler’s place right now, but he’s the obvious man on the bubble. If Boston feels as though Kyle Harrison or Richard Fitts has shown enough progress in Triple-A, or even top prospect Payton Tolle, for that matter, Buehler’s days in the rotation could justifiably be numbered.

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