The 29-year-old received a rapturous ovation from Dodger Stadium as he returned to the mound for the first time in nearly two years.
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.
“I don’t expect to see 96, 97 , 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. 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.
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.
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