MILWAUKEE — If one was looking for a different Walker Buehler in his second go-around back from a second Tommy John surgery, there were signs. There was the tweak to Buehler’s delivery, with the right-hander ditching his typical motion of bringing his hands over his head. His leg kick wasn’t as exaggerated. His stride to the plate was shorter, particularly from the stretch. There were tangible, visible differences when the former budding ace of the Los Angeles Dodgers took a big league mound Wednesday night at American Family Field.
The results, unfortunately, were painfully similar. Buehler had a three-run advantage before he even took the mound for his first big-league start in two months, yet the same issues cropped up. It took until the second batter of his night for the right-hander’s frustration to bubble to the surface with a wave of expletives. More followed a batter later, when Buehler walked the bases loaded before he could record an out. The Dodgers lost, 5-4, snapping a five-game winning streak with a stretch of untimely poor defense — including a Mookie Betts error in right field that brought home the winning run — and more questions from its starter.
“He was out of sync tonight,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of a return that looked like much of the same.
The lapses in command have been a continual problem for Buehler, even after the pending free agent used his time on the injured list to reconstruct his delivery at Cressey Sports Performance in Florida. He walked four of 18 batters, working seven different three-ball counts. He yanked pitches. He overthrew others, missing to his arm side. He had little feel for his curveball, his lone offering that changes speed from the rest of his arsenal.
“I keep trying this and that and this and that and I haven’t found kind of what sticks,” Buehler said.
The only thing that has been consistent with Buehler in his return from his second major surgery has been his inconsistency. He wore a 5.84 ERA over his first eight starts before the Dodgers put him back on the injured list in June with a hip issue; Buehler took that time to reset, saying last month “I needed to be somewhere else” as he sought self-rediscovery. That hasn’t come to fruition. His delivery remains inconsistent and flawed.
“Just too many misfires,” Buehler said. “Too many holes in my delivery in terms of where little things can go wrong. … Just too many little different things are going wrong in the delivery that I’m not controlling it the way I want to.”
Kiermaier cannon! pic.twitter.com/SGagkqr0gS
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) August 15, 2024
His first sample back was more of the same. The Dodgers opted to bring Buehler up even after two of his three rehabilitation starts in the minors revealed several of the same command issues. The club has trusted his pedigree and still believes his arsenal is good enough to get hitters out, even though he hasn’t done so consistently since his return. If the Dodgers want to get to where they want to be in October, having Buehler back at some productive level would help.
So, the Dodgers will be patient. How patient?
“That’s a fair question,” Roberts said Wednesday afternoon. “I don’t know that answer. I think that with the track record, he certainly deserves a longer runway. But what that means … is that three starts? Is it four or five starts? I just don’t know right now.”
His final line Wednesday against the Milwaukee Brewers, allowing four runs — just one earned — while recording just 10 outs on 87 pitches was a maddening display that narrowly avoided being worse. Buehler managed to avoid giving up a run after walking the bases loaded in the first, aided by Kevin Kiermaier’s 99-mph throw to the plate to stop Brice Turang from scoring on a sacrifice fly. He left a runner on in the fourth inning that Clayton Kershaw’s keen eye would help keep off the board: The left-hander noticed that Brewers infielder Joey Ortiz had slid into second base, taken a step towards first base and not retouched second before heading for third, allowing the Dodgers to get an out on appeal.
The Brewers got to him anyway. Jake Bauers jumped on a full-count fastball at his letters and out over the plate for a solo homer. When Nick Ahmed bobbled Sal Frelick’s grounder to extend the second inning, Turang drove a curveball over the plate out and over Kiermaier’s head in center for a triple. Jackson Chourio’s soft-hit single got through to level the early score, and the tie would only last another inning. Ortiz hit a soft grounder against a drawn-in Dodgers infield, but the ball trickled off Kiké Hernández’s glove at third for another run.
Buehler said he feels “closer” to where he was when he last took a big league mound 57 days ago. His twice-repaired elbow doesn’t have the same soreness. Nor does his hip. He’s come away from recent bullpen sessions feeling encouraged. But crossing that into actual effectiveness on the mound has been difficult.
It was far from the return Buehler or the Dodgers hoped for, even after Roberts acknowledged pregame he didn’t fully know what he’d be getting from his night’s starter. That is a difficult way for the Dodgers to live.
After all, they don’t have a ton of leash to give him. They have played their best baseball in months, though Wednesday’s loss dropped them from the best record in the sport. It also cut their lead in the division to two and a half games, as the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks continue to win at a torrid clip.
“At the end of the day, there’s a standard of performing here,” Buehler said. “I’m very aware of where I’m at in that standard.”
That raises stakes that are already prominent every time Buehler takes the mound.
“When you’re here, it is about performance, and we all know that,” Roberts said. “So it’s not from lack of effort, lack of searching, lack of compete, but you know, at some point we just got to get the production.”
(Photo: Stacy Revere / Getty Images)
