Nearly two years after his last major league start, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Walker Buehler returns from the IL tonight. He is slated for a two-step this week.
That’s right. Buehler is a two-start pitcher, meaning for those who set weekly roto lineups, the potential upside is enormous but not without risk.
If you’ve been stashing him on your IL, you’re no doubt eager to slot him back into the rotation. Buehler finished fourth in Cy Young voting in 2021—the last full season he pitched—striking out batters at a rate of more than nine per nine innings and finishing with a 2.47 ERA.
Monday will be Buehler’s first start on a major league mound since undergoing Tommy John surgery in August 2022. He’ll be facing the Miami Marlins, who are already waving the white flag on the season. Miami traded Luis Arraez to the Padres on Saturday morning and promptly got walloped by the Oakland A’s20-4 that night.
Buehler made six minor league rehab starts, posting a 4.15 ERA and striking out 21 batters across 21 2/3 innings pitched. While his K-rate is in good shape, his command has not been ideal. Buehler walked nine total batters in those starts for an average of 3.7 per nine innings, and he finished with a 1.64 WHIP.
Buehler’s second start comes vs. the Padres in San Diego. The Dodgers’ rivals have been playing strong baseball this season and, as mentioned above, just acquired Arraez, who has a league-low 7.1% strikeout rate this season. The Padres have scored the fifth-most runs per game this season (5.08) and have won three of their five matchups with the Dodgers in 2024.
Nearly two years after his last big league start, the 29-year-old right-hander should have a little rust. Expect Buehler to be on a pitch count, which reduces his chances of qualifying for the win.
I’ll wait and see in all but my deepest leagues with a weekly lineup lock. I don’t trust Buehler in his first week back facing major league pitching.
In DFS, however, I’ll be giving Buehler a start vs. the Marlins. It’s a contrarian play that could pay dividends in a GPP tournament.
If you’ve followed my bets at Sports Illustrated, you know I love nothing more than plus-money action.
On the surface, backing the Pirates (28-32) vs. the Dodgers (38-24) looks pretty crazy. Los Angeles is the heavy favorite at -180, while Pittsburgh backers will be paid +158 if they pull off the upset.
No, rookie sensation Paul Skenes is not pitching for the Bucs. He got the win on Wednesday night. Neither is Jared Jones. He won on Tuesday. Instead, we will see Bailey Falter get the ball in Pittsburgh as the Pirates go for the sweep.
No one is buzzing about Falter the way they are about his teammates above, but those paying close attention know Falter has an ERA of just 2.56 across his last10 starts. That’s not too shabby.
Full disclosure: Falter is a lefty and the Los Angeles Dodgers mash lefties. They own the second-best OPS and ISO and the third-best SLG vs. southpaws in MLB (hence the -180). However, this team has been struggling offensively lately, averaging just 3.18 runs per game across the last two weeks of play.
Righty Walker Buehler gets the start for the Dodgers. Since returning in May from Tommy John surgery, Buehler has not returned to his previous form. Buehler has an ERA of 4.32 in his five starts this season, and in his two away starts, his ERA is 6.00.
Buehler isn’t generating whiffs, and his 2.16 home runs allowed per nine innings is among the worst in MLB. That could spell trouble if the Pirates continue hitting well.
The Pirates have averaged five runs per game across the past two weeks of play, the fifth-most in MLB. Bryan Reynolds is swinging a hot bat with three home runs and 14 RBI in that period.
Pittsburgh is 9-5 as the home underdog this season. That 64% win rate as the home underdog is the fifth-best in MLB.
The Dodgers are 5-5 in their last 10 games.
The Pirates are 6-4, including a 10-6 win vs. the Dodgers last night.
The Pirates bullpen is a wild card in the event, but no risk it, no biscuit. Who wants to take a walk on the wild side?
For 22 months, Walker Buehler dreamed about the moment he would next pitch in a major league game. As he woke up from elbow reconstruction surgery, as he muscled through exercises to strengthen the new ligament, as he endured setback after setback, he thought about climbing the mound. And then it turned out the part he liked best was actually descending it.
“The ceremony of it is done,” he said with relief after he had allowed three runs in four innings in a 6–3 Los Angeles Dodgers victory over the Miami Marlins. “Now I can kind of focus on trying to be good and helping our team.”
He did enough on Monday, although he got some help from the league’s best offense (Los Angeles, with a .806 OPS) and the league’s third-worst (Miami; .626). He allowed six hits and no walks, and he struck out four. He used all six of his pitches—a cutter, a four-seam fastball, a sinker, a knuckle curve, a slider and a changeup. And he surprised both himself and his manager with his velocity.
“I don’t expect to see 96, 97 [mph], where he was prior to the surgery,” Dave Roberts said before the game. Buehler had been closer to 95 mph in his rehab appearances, and he wondered whether those few ticks on the gun would return. But on Monday he averaged 95.9 mph and topped out at 97.6 mph.
“I think I could be O.K. if I was [throwing] 92, 94 [mph],” he said. “I think I'm confident that way. But it helps a lot if I can throw 96 or 97.”
The velocity came back before the command did. Buehler, 29, took the field to a lengthy ovation from the 44,970 at Dodger Stadium, made longer when leadoff hitter Jazz Chisholm Jr. stepped out of the box to extend it, a move Buehler called “kind of cool.” (He then added, of the flamboyant center fielder, “That’s one of the better things I’ve seen him do on a baseball field, at least for me personally.”) Buehler reached two strikes on each of the first two hitters but allowed hits to both. He gave up a homer in the second on a sinker that didn’t sink, and he was a half a step slow covering first base, allowing the next batter to reach. But he seemed to settle in and begin hitting his spots, and he escaped the next two innings with only a single and a hit by pitch.
“You could see the execution crisping up a bit,” said catcher Will Smith.
The velocity sagged in the later innings, but not because Buehler took something off to find accuracy; “I just got really tired,” he said. “I was just tired enough to throw it over there and they hit the top of it a couple of times.”
Buehler returned to the mound with the Dodgers for the first time in nearly two years.
Kiyoshi Mio-USA TODAY Sports
The whole thing was exhilarating. Since he last pitched in a game that mattered, Buehler turned 28, then 29. He and his wife, McKenzie, became parents; daughter Finley recently turned three months old. He will be a free agent after this season.
He is navigating a recovery almost without precedent. On Monday, Buehler joined some 100 other major leaguers who pitched again after a second Tommy John surgery; only abouthalf a dozen did so with any real success as starters.
Buehler endured his first Tommy John surgery two weeks after the Dodgers selected him out of Vanderbilt in the first round of the 2015 draft; he made his professional debut just shy of a year later.
He tried to return down the stretch last year but shut himself down after just one rehab outing. He took it slow this spring but still encountered setbacks—a comebacker to his right middle finger that cut one outing short by some 50 pitches, spotty command that extended innings and forced him out of games early, a generally lackluster rehab assignment in which he admitted he never felt the adrenaline he weaponizes when he is at his best.
At one point, Buehler seemed to be the future of the Dodgers’ pitching staff, a budding ace who watched the 2017 World Series from the stands before helping anchor the rotation en route to the ’20 title. From ’18 through ’21, he was by FanGraphs’ version of WAR, the seventh most valuable pitcher in the sport. It was easy to imagine that he would lead the charge through October for years to come.
But that postseason, Buehler started Game 4 of the National League Division Series on short rest. He made his next start on six days’ rest and was scheduled to start a possible Game 7 of the National League Championship Series on regular rest. But Max Scherzer, scheduled to start Game 6, was scratched the night before when he complained of arm fatigue. Buehler again took the ball on short rest. He lasted four innings and took the loss. He made it until June of the next year before his UCL tore. Neither he nor the Dodgers have publicly attributed the injury to that playoff run—and indeed the UCL rarely fails from one incident—but it’s hard to imagine he will start on short rest this October.
The Dodgers’ season could hinge on Buehler’s effectiveness this fall. Yoshinobu Yamamoto has pitched well after a disastrous debut, but this is his first season in MLB. Tyler Glasnow has been electric, but he has never thrown more than 120 innings in a season. James Paxton is 35. Gavin Stone is a rookie. Bobby Miller is out with shoulder inflammation. Clayton Kershaw is recovering from capsule surgery, which often ends players’ careers.
“I just want to win,” Buehler said. “I think for me, it's always been being a guy that 25 other guys want to have the ball when we need to win the game.” This October will mark nearly 36 months since he last pitched in a postseason game. He’s already thinking about climbing that mound.
