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.
