Former Vanderbilt pitcher Walker Buehler has recorded plenty of memorable moments in his baseball career.
He helped the Commodores win the College World Series in 2014, was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2015 and helped the Dodgers win the World Series in 2020.
But Monday night will be a career highlight as well, even if it wasn’t quite as historic in nature.
The 29-year-old Buehler made his first Major League appearance in nearly two years, starting and throwing four innings in the Dodgers’ 6-3 win over the Miami Marlins.
Buehler had spent the last 20 months rehabilitating from the second Tommy John surgery of his career, necessitated when he suffered an ulnar collateral ligament injury in his elbow in June of 2022. The surgery took place two months later.
It won’t rank among the best starts of Buehler’s career, as he surrendered six hits — including a home run — and three earned runs in the contest. But the good news was that Buehler averaged 96 miles per hour with his fastball, and reached 97 and 98 miles per hour on a handful of occasions. He struck out four, retiring six of the last eight batters he faced.
“The ceremony of it is done,” Buehler told media in Los Angeles afterward. “Now I can kind of focus on trying to be good and helping our team. I wish it would've gone better. I wish I would've thrown five or six shutout innings and whatever. But it's done. And I'm happy to be back."
The Dodgers are as well, considering all of Buehler’s accomplishments: He finished third in rookie of the year voting in 2018, was twice named an All Star (2019, 2021) and twice finished in the top 10 in Cy Young voting (2019, 2021).
Buehler was a big part of the Dodgers’ most recent World Series triumph in 2020, as he went 2-0 with a 1.80 ERA in five postseason starts that year, limiting opponents to a .196 batting average and posting 39 strikeouts in 25 innings. In the Dodgers’ Game Three win over Tampa Bay in the World Series, Buehler struck out 10 batters in six innings.
The Lexington, Ky., native has a career record of 46-16, with a 3.04 ERA and 694 strikeouts in 642 1/3 innings pitched.
"I'm sure tomorrow he's going to wake up feeling like he got in a car accident," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Buehler. "His whole body's going to be sore. But that's a good thing. And so he'll get back to being a regular major league starter. But we got Walker Buehler back."
The 6-2, 185-pound Buehler made several rehabilitation starts in the minors prior to Monday.
His first Tommy John surgery was in 2015, not long after the Dodgers selected him in the first round.
In his three years at Vanderbilt, Buehler produced a 21-7 record, with 260 strikeouts in 253 2/3 innings pitched.