Walker Buehler is on the board

Phil Gurnee ♦ June 24, 2019 ♦ 1 Comment

At the beginning of the year, I thought Walker Buehler would be in the Cy Young conversation but as April turned to May that thought was long gone from my memory. On June 21st, Walker reminded me why I had such lofty thought for him when he pitched a complete game with sixteen strikeouts.

I thought the Walker Buehler game on Friday night was going to be the best game score of 2019 but I must not have paid enough attention to the game that German Marquez threw on April 14th when he threw a one-hit shutout. Still, the game on Friday night by Buehler was the best game by a Dodger this year and it did include the most strikeouts in one game by any pitcher this year.

Player                    Date  Rslt  IP H ER BB SO GSc
German Marquez      2019-04-14 W 4-0 9.0 1  0  0  9  94
Sandy Alcantara     2019-05-19 W 3-0 9.0 2  0  1  8  90
Walker Buehler      2019-06-21 W 4-2 9.0 3  2  0 16  89
Freddy Peralta      2019-04-03 W 1-0 8.0 2  0  0 11  89
Noah Syndergaard    2019-05-02 W 1-0 9.0 4  0  1 10  88
Hyun-Jin Ryu        2019-05-12 W 6-0 8.0 1  0  1  9  88

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/24/2019.

Player                 Date  Rslt  IP H ER BB SO GSc
Walker Buehler   2019-06-21 W 4-2 9.0 3  2  0 16  89
Max Scherzer     2019-06-02 W 4-1 8.0 3  1  1 15  86
Jacob deGrom     2019-04-03 W 6-4 7.0 3  0  1 14  84

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/24/2019.

This game has to be one of the most dominant games by a right-handed LAD pitcher using strikeout as the cherry-picked criteria? Let’s find out.

Yeah it was:

Player                 Date  Tm  Rslt  IP H ER BB SO GSc
Ramon Martinez   1990-06-04 LAD W 6-0 9.0 3  0  1 18  98
Hideo Nomo       1996-04-13 LAD W 3-1 9.0 3  1  3 17  91
Walker Buehler   2019-06-21 LAD W 4-2 9.0 3  2  0 16  89
Hideo Nomo       1995-06-14 LAD W 8-5 8.0 6  2  2 16  74

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/24/2019.

Only four right-handed LAD pitchers have struck out at least 16 hitters and Walker Buehler is now one of them. Granted strike-outs in 2019 are as prevalent as lies by POTUS compared to the historical past but still, you have to count them.

This was also the best game score by Walker in his brief career, with two his best game scores coming in the month of June.

Date          Tm Opp  Rslt  IP H ER BB SO GSc
2019-06-21   LAD COL W 4-2 9.0 3  2  0 16  89
2019-06-03   LAD ARI W 3-1 8.0 2  1  0 11  85
2018-09-14   LAD STL W 3-0 8.0 2  0  2  9  85

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/24/2019.

With his dominant June, Walker is once again making a case for the 2019 CYA. Max Scherzer has a sizable WAR lead but Max is 6 -5 and Walker is 8 – 1 and while wins don’t have the caveat they once had, they might still have enough to sway just enough voters. The chart below was created via export download from www.fangraphs.com.