Dodgers: Walker Buehler joins elite company after striking out 15

On Saturday night the Dodgers sent Walker Buehler to the mound after Dustin May debuted a day before.  Buehler reminded everyone not to forget about him.

The Dodgers sent their top pitching prospect to the mound Friday night as Dustin May put his hype to test against the Padres.  Next up in the rotation was Walker Buehler and on Saturday night he reminded everyone not to forget about another former top pitching prospect.  Buehler put together arguably his best outing of the 2019 season.

Walker’s final line came in at nine innings pitched, five hits, one run, and 15 strikeouts.  The most impressive part about his high strikeout game is that he walked zero.  Not only did Buehler have his usual ace stuff, but he had control of his arsenal.  His slider was excellent and minimized the Padres’ best hitters such as Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado.

With his strong outing, Walker Buehler joined Pedro Martinez and Dwight Gooden as the only pitchers’ sine 1908 to have more than one fifteen strikeout game with no walks in a single season.  Martinez did it twice in the seasons of 1999 and 2000 while Gooden did it way back in 1984.  Clayton Kershaw had one 15K no walk game in his illustrious career.

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Another impressive statistic is that Walker Buehler is only the third starting pitcher to put together multiple fifteen strikeouts zero walk games before the age of twenty-six.  Dwight Gooden and Roger Clemens are the two starters who have done that. Luckily for the Padres, Buehler’s first start this season with more than fifteen strikeouts came against the Rockies.

That outing against the Colorado Rockies came back on June 21st, at Dodger Stadium.  In that start, Buehler pitched a complete game, allowing three hits, two runs, and sixteen strikeouts. That outing also came with zero walks and Walker gave up a pair of solo home runs.  There is still plenty of time for Buehler to rack up another fifteen ore more strikeout game in 2019.

The Dodgers hope they can get one of those games in October, the World Series being their preference.  Walker has been fairly consistent this season after a bad start.  The slow start is most likely tied to the fact that he missed most of spring training.  since the All-Star break, Buehler has a 2.30 ERA in four starts.

Plenty of pitching prospects are getting their chance in LA this season with Tony Gonsolin next up on Monday.  Walker Buehler is no longer a prospect but at age twenty-five, he is going to be a part of the Dodgers’ rotation for many seasons to come.