Their early-season struggles were similar. Their long-term objective is the same.
But, in a bid to save their seasons and vie for a place in the Dodgers’ October pitching plans, Bobby Miller and Walker Buehler traveled divergent paths to improvement while attempting to reset their game over the last month.
Miller, the second-year right-hander battling the ill effects of a shoulder injury from earlier this season, hunkered down with Dodgers coaches after being optioned to the minor leagues before the All-Star break.
Buehler, on the other hand, went outside the organization amid a frustrating return from Tommy John surgery, spending time at a private training facility in Florida while on the injured list with a hip injury before rejoining the team this week ahead of a minor-league rehab assignment.
“Obviously, there was a little bit of a different approach,” pitching coach Mark Prior said. “They’re not apples-to-apples scenarios.”
Both pitchers are among the Dodgers’ more talented arms, Miller with his heavy fastball and Buehler with his deep arsenal of breaking stuff. Both are potential X factors for the Dodgers’ banged-up pitching staff, which is eager to get either (or both) back in top form in time for the playoffs.
However, the alternative plans Miller and Buehler have followed the last month reflect the challenges unique to each pitcher.
Dodgers pitcher Bobby Miller posted an 8.07 ERA in seven starts this season before being sent down to the minor leagues earlier this month.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
For Miller, it was about working with the coaching staff to get “back to his normal throw he had last year,” Prior said, before the flame-throwing right-hander developed bad delivery habits from his shoulder injury and posted an 8.07 ERA in seven starts.
“It was a combination of an injury, and a little bit of like, that sophomore [slump], where you’re on the map, people know you, have a better idea [of how to attack you],” Prior said. “Our confidence is, when Bobby’s right, we know he has a five-pitch mix that really plays.”
With Buehler, the process has been more existential, sending the two-time All-Star and former Cy Young candidate searching for different voices after suffering a 5.84 ERA in eight starts — as well as the lingering hip issue that landed him on the injured list last month.
“I kind of know what I want to be,” Buehler said this week. “I’m just struggling to find the first domino getting there.”
Indeed, when Buehler returned to the Dodgers’ rotation this season — almost two years after his second career Tommy John procedure — the right-hander didn’t look far off his old self.
His fastball sat around 95 mph, only a slight drop from his peak years of 2019 to 2021. While his spin rates had fallen since then, too, he and Dodgers coaches were still encouraged by the “characteristics” of his pitches, confident his mix of cutters, sinkers, curveballs and sliders would give him enough options to effectively navigate starts.
The problem was, for a pitcher who used to challenge, if not bully, opponents with his four-seam fastball, Buehler could no longer attack with such in-the-zone aggression.
He would fall behind early in counts, struggle to put hitters away with two strikes, and watch as once-untouchable heaters were instead turned around for a parade of hits and long home runs.
“It’s always been part of my game,” Buehler said, “the ability to turn it on when I wanted to.”
This year, however, “I just didn’t really have that gear,” he acknowledged. “When the delivery is not in the spot it’s been your whole career, you don’t have the feel to kind of go [like that].”
That’s why, when Buehler landed on the injured list, the Dodgers’ front office granted his request to train at Cressey Sports Performance near Palm Beach, Fla. — a well-known training lab frequented by other big-league stars.
“I wanted to go and see some different verbiage, different thoughts, different movement patterns, etc., to try to get those feels back,” Buehler said.
“We just had a lot of conversation about, ‘OK, let’s talk about what’s going to put you in the best position for you coming back to help us win a World Series,’” general manager Brandon Gomes added. “And he was confident that’s what was best for him.”
It wasn’t Buehler’s first foray into private instruction. The seven-year veteran had previously worked at training centers like Driveline and Push Performance. He’s long been known for his curious baseball mind, closely following the cutting edge of modern pitching development.
“He felt like he needed a different voice,” Prior said. “And that’s fine. We’ve always been open to that, whether it’s during the season or during the offseason.”
This time, though, his nearly monthlong absence created some unknowns.
Dodgers pitching coaches saw only limited video of Buehler’s progress during his time in Florida. And when he returned to the team this week, Prior said the club would have to “wait and see” exactly how much Buehler has rectified from his confounding struggles earlier this season.
Dodgers Walker Buehler watches a home run by the Rockies’ Brenton Doyle during his start on June 18, a day before he went on the injured list.
(David Zalubowski / Associated Press)
“I think we all trust that if things are physically right and he’s executing pitches, that we feel pretty good about what he can do in a playoff game,” Prior said. “But I think, as we’ve seen, it hasn’t played out the way we all hoped and wanted it to. So we’ll have to go step by step and see where we’re at.”
On the other end of the spectrum, the Dodgers took a very hands-on approach to Miller in recent weeks, demoting him to triple-A to work with director of pitching Rob Hill and others in the club’s player development department.
Last year, Miller emerged as a rookie star in the Dodgers’ rotation, going 11-4 with a 3.76 ERA to earn a place in the postseason rotation. The pitcher looked poised to build off it this year, too, after spinning six shutout innings against the St. Louis Cardinals in his season debut.
Two weeks later, however, Miller went down with shoulder inflammation, missing more than two months while nursing the injury.
When he returned, he found his arm slot in his delivery had unintentionally shifted. His fastball command suffered. The consistency of his breaking pitches evaporated. And, in his final outing before being sent down, he gave up nine runs in four innings to the Philadelphia Phillies.
“It was like, ‘All right, my arm feels great, but I don’t know where the ball is going,’” Miller said. “It just kind of messed me up mentally.”
So, Miller spent the final week before the All-Star break back in Los Angeles, working alongside Hill to recalibrate his mechanics.
“Literally within the first day, he showed me some new drills on how to stay looser when I throw and not tense up,” Miller said. “It just kind of had my arm feel like a whip again. That’s how it feels when I throw it really well.”
That translated to Miller’s first triple-A start last Saturday, when he flashed an uptick in velocity and sharper secondary stuff in a scoreless five-inning start.
“That was a good step in the right direction,” manager Dave Roberts said.
“I think it was good to get him out of the big-league environment,” Prior added, “of where he’s got the pressure of trying to perform.”
This weekend, both Miller and Buehler are scheduled to pitch for the club’s Oklahoma City affiliate, putting them on track to rejoin the Dodgers’ big-league roster early next month.
The hope is that there’s still time for each pitcher to salvage his season and rediscover consistent production.
Given their natural talent and premium raw stuff, the club is optimistic they can pitch their way into key October roles.
With few impact starters available at this year’s trade deadline, and injury questions continuing to surround Yoshinobu Yamamoto and others at the top of the club’s rotation, the pair has become something of a lottery ticket to the Dodgers’ World Series chances — potentially representing the club’s best chance to significantly bolster the rotation before the start of the playoffs.
Ultimately, that’s where both right-handers want to end up — even if getting there has taken them in different directions, and led to midseason resets of drastically different styles.
“I feel a lot more encouraged in terms of, mentally, [having] the knowledge of the delivery,” Buehler said.
“This is gonna be a huge motivator for me moving forward,” added Miller. “Maybe going through this is gonna make me even better than I was before.”