Dodgers: Walker Buehler Vs Clayton Kershaw Through Seven Starts

The Dodgers are no strangers to pitching prospects with tons of hype.  In recent memory, it started with Clayton Kershaw and Chad Billingsley, and in more recent years there has been Julio Urias and now Walker Buehler.

While not all pitching prospects will live up to the hype the Dodgers got everything they hoped for and more in Clayton Kershaw.  Kershaw would be a hall of Famer if he retired today and he still has plenty of very good seasons ahead of him if he can avoid more injury troubles.  In Walker Buehler, the Dodgers have a pitching prospect whose hype was diminished a bit due to the fact he needed Tommy John surgery after being drafted.  Now that Buehler is fully recovered he is attempting to take the big leagues by storm.

Through seven major league starts, Walker Buehler has put up noticeably better numbers than Clayton Kershaw.  Kershaw through seven starts had a 4.36 ERA while Buehler has a minuscule 2.20 ERA after seven strong innings against the Padres on Sunday.  Buehler’s ERA is nearly half of what Kershaw’s ERA was through his first seven starts.  While it’s only seven starts and a ridiculously small sample size, that is still very impressive.

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The part of Buehler’s game that has been years ahead of Kershaw’s game through his first seven starts is the ability to pitch deeper into games.  In his first seven starts, Clayton Kershaw only made it through six innings once and he only pitched into the sixth inning twice.  In seven starts so far, Walker Buehler has finished six innings twice and even made it through seven innings twice.  When Kershaw first came up he was a bit wild and tried to pitch around contact and strike every hitter out.  Buehler has a veteran like approach on the mound going after batters aggressively and his control has been excellent for a hard-throwing rookie.

Clayton Kershaw had 22 walks in his first seven starts which were only thirty-three innings.  Rookie Walker Buehler has only walked nine batters in his first seven starts spanning forty-one innings of work.  This has helped Buehler to a 0.90 WHIP so far compared to the 1.63 WHIP put together by young Clayton Kershaw in the first seven starts of his career.  Again this may only be seven starts but the numbers are night and day in what Buehler has been able to do in his first seven starts compared to what a future hall of famer did in his first seven starts.

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Luckily for us Dodger fans, there should be plenty of more years where we can see Clayton Kershaw and Walker Buehler pitch in the same rotation.  It will be a treat to see the latter half of a hall of famer’s career next to the early career of the next Dodgers’ young phenom.  If Walker Buehler ends up being half the pitcher that Kershaw is, he will have a very solid career in Dodger blue.