Before Friday, Walker Buehler’s previous appearance at Yankee Stadium was a pair of massive contributions for the Los Angeles Dodgers, resulting in the visiting clubhouse turning into a massive celebration and a place of cursing and drinking ahead of a celebration spilling onto the field until about 3 am.

Buehler’s five scoreless innings of two-hit ball in Game 3 and his two strikeouts in a 16-pitch save two nights later resulted in the massive dogpile on the field and also was his last pitch as a Dodgers for the time being.

About eight months later, Buehler was on the mound this time in the context of the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry. He was part of an aggressive offseason for the Red Sox, who signed him to a one-year, $21 million contract after a notable postseason following recovery from Tommy John surgery on his elbow.

And the feelings were nowhere near as joyful when he secured the Dodgers’ first full season World Series title since 1988. The Yankees looked much better against him, tagging him for five runs in the first inning after he was one strike away and two more in the second, sending him into the night following his shortest outing since joining the Red Sox on the “prove-it” deal.

About two-plus hours after his final pitch, Buehler showed some massive frustration, unleashing a few expletives along the way. The summary on the transcription service most people use nowadays says the “subject is frustrated with his performance” and it is putting it diplomatically.

“This organization put a lot of faith in me this offseason and I’ve been (expletive) embarrassing for us,” Buehler said. “So, it’s tough. It’s obviously a big game and a big rivalry that I was excited to be a part of and for it to go the way that it did is super disappointing, especially after the past two, three weeks of prep and throwing and all that kind of (expletive) and how I’m feeling. Physically I feel great and for it to happen that way (stinks)”

Buehler is operating with a different pitch mix nowadays, throwing his four-seam fastball 24 percent of the time at 93.8 mph, down from the 28.9 percent at 95 last season. He also is throwing his slider 84 percent of the time after throwing 11 sliders last season.

In his first taste of the rivalry that will get the FOX and ESPN treatment the rest of the weekend, Buehler deployed his slider 29 times and gave up a three-run homer on the curveball to Jazz Chisholm Jr. after getting ahead 0-2.

“I don’t want to dig too deep into it. Obviously, I’m throwing a lot of sliders. I’m throwing a lot of (the) two-seamer,” he said. “Those traditionally haven’t been what I do very often. And I think when the sweeper is never in the zone like it hasn’t been, the curveball’s gonna get hit more than it has, the cutter’s gonna get hit more than it has.”

.While physically Buehler is fine after a brief injured list stint due to shoulder bursitis, the results are not and continuing an alarming trend of struggling in the first inning and getting sub-par results from starting pitchers when Garrett Crochet is not pitching.

Opponents are hitting .326 in the first inning against the Red Sox this season and 21-for-41 in the past seven opening innings since Brayan Bello pitched a 1-2-3 first inning May 28 at Milwaukee.

“He feels great physically, he feels his stuff is really good, and then that happened, you know?” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “So it’s not easy to be out there and get your ass kicked, right? I think we’re all frustrated, you know, and he’s trying to find a way.”

Those were Cora’s words about 5 1/2 hours after he answered a question to assess the state of his team so far. When asked about it, he quietly and succinctly said “not good”.

Not good is a vastly different feeling than what Buehler felt like in the wee hours of Halloween when he celebrated with the likes of Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts.