Walker Buehler made his highly anticipated return to the mound for the Los Angeles Dodgers after missing the past two seasons due to injury.
He last pitched on June 10, 2022 against the San Francisco Giants, leaving a game because of discomfort in his pitching elbow.
This eventually resulted in him undergoing season-ending surgery on his right arm in August 2022. It was later announced by the Dodgers that Buehler underwent both his second Tommy John surgery, as well as flexor tendon repair.
After five rehab appearances in the Minors, Buehler was finally back at Dodger Stadium to make his 2024 season debut against the Miami Marlins on Monday night.
The Marlins offense ambushed Buehler early before he could get settled in, scoring three runs on five hits in the first two innings of his outing.
He had trouble putting away the first two batters of the game as Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Bryan De La Cruz both reached base after nine and seven pitch at-bats respectively. However, it was not for a lack of velocity of Buehler’s fastball as many might have thought.
Heading into this game, there were a lot of questions about Buehler’s fastball as he made his way back from serious injury.
Throughout Spring Training and his rehab assignment, it was the subject of intense scrutiny. That did not seem to be a problem for him in this outing as he touched 97.6 MPH on his fastball.
“I didn’t think there was 97 or 98, but I think that’s the adrenaline of being back,” Buehler said. “Normally, I try to temper that. And I’ve been somewhat concerned about the velocity, so we kind of tried to ride it and see what’s in there.
“The next one, I’ll probably feel the same and be able to temper it a little bit knowing that it’s in there. I’ll probably have higher expectations of myself next outing. I feel pretty good coming out of it. We’ll see how it goes.”
It still remains to be seen if this can be sustainable for him or if it was just the result of the adrenaline pumping in his first start in the Majors after two seasons away.
The nerves did seem to be present for Buehler at least a little bit during the beginning of his start, with the best example being him dropping the feed from Freddie Freeman while covering first base on a routine ground ball in the second inning.
“22 months is a long time, so there’s some stuff that’s subconscious that you don’t even think about that, when you don’t play, you kind of forget,” Buehler said. “I don’t think I held runners very well, there’s little stuff like that that comes back over time.”
In his final two innings, he faced just one over the minimum and finished with a final line score of three runs, six hits, and four strikeouts over four innings.
“It can be a little overwhelming at times, kind of tired myself out in the first couple innings, but yeah that one is done,” Buehler said. “The ceremony of it is kind of done and now I can focus on trying to be good and helping our team.
“I wish it would have gone better, I wish I would have tossed five or six shutout innings, but it’s done and I’m happy to be back.”
Dodgers offense supports Walker Buehler in 2024 debut
The Dodgers offense did their part to take a lot of pressure off of Buehler by giving him plenty of run support in his first start of 2024. Twice the Dodgers re-took the lead in their half of the inning after Buehler surrendered runs to the Marlins offense.
They deserve a ton of credit for giving Buehler the safety net he needed to recover and have a much more positive final two innings of his outing.
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