Walker Buehler will make his highly-anticipated season debut for the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday, manager Dave Roberts told reporters after Wednesday's 8-0 win against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Phoenix.
Buehler impressed in his final rehab start on Tuesday night with Triple-A Oklahoma City, completing five innings without walking a batter, striking out seven, and allowing only three hard-hit balls on 75 pitches.
Buehler returns to the Dodgers after an almost two-year hiatus. He had his second Tommy John surgery and had his right flexor tendon repaired in June 2022. Now, the Dodgers will hand him the ball in one of the best circumstances. He will face one of Major League Baseball's worst team, the Miami Marlins.
His start won't necessarily be pressure-free, but facing a bad team is less stressful when he has already proven himself against lesser competition in the minor leagues.
Which version of Buehler will the Dodgers get? Roberts expects his starter to be in attack mode with all his pitches.
“I think he’s going to still be Walker,” Roberts told reporters after the Dodgers’ game Wednesday. “He’s going to be attacking. But I think that there’s an attacking with his entire repertoire. I think that in years past, it was heavy fastball, heavy cutter where I think that Walker has more weapons. And I think that’s what my hope is, instead of just trying to bully guys.”
The 29-year-old right-hander out of Vanderbilt is 46-16 with a 3.02 ERA in his career. His last fully healthy season was 2021, when he went 16-4 with a 2.47 ERA and finished fourth in National League Cy Young Award voting.
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