Dodgers News: Walker Buehler Proud of Attempt to Return This Season

The former All-Star almost crossed the finish line!

Walker Buehler has been shut down for the season.

News came out about a week ago that Buehler is not going to return for the 2023 season, and instead set his goal of being 100% ready to start the 2024 season.

After a couple of days, Buehler finally went to the media to talk about the decision and why both sides ultimately erred on the side of caution.

“At the end of the day, I wasn’t recovering the way that I would need to to make an impact here and also an impact that’s worth any risk that would (surround) me coming back,” Buehler said.

(via Doug Padilla, The Orange County Register)

The recovery box is one of the last goals that needs to be accomplished and one of the last goals one can actually test.

After making his first appearance in Triple-A last week, Buehler was scheduled to make another start. However, on the day he was scheduled to make an appearance, he was shut down.

Obviously, Buehler and the trainers noticed he was not recovering how he had hoped and knew that if he were to take the mound, he'd be putting himself at a higher chance of re-injury.

This was not an unsuccessful comeback for the 29-year-old pitcher, as coming back from a second Tommy John surgery has a recovery window between 14-18 months and Buehler had his surgery in late August of 2022.

Buehler was blowing that time frame out of the water by two months.

“I checked a lot of the boxes that I wanted to,” Buehler said. “We talked about Sept. 1 and all of that stuff and in a lot of ways, I got to compete and go out and do it pretty quickly. And I’m pretty proud of that.”



(via Doug Padilla, The Orange County Register)

Buehler will now have his eyes set on 2024 where he looks to reclaim his spot as the Dodgers top starting pitcher.