Walker Buehler shows some rust but overcomes it in his Dodgers return

It took all of seven pitches for Dodgers right-hander Walker Buehler to exceed the expectations of manager Dave Roberts, who prefaced Buehler’s first major league start in 23 months Monday night by saying, “I don’t expect to see the 96-97 mph that he had before [Tommy John] surgery.”

After completing his warmup pitches with Rage Against the Machine’s “Bulls on Parade” blaring on the Dodger Stadium public-address system, Buehler went into his windup with the signature high leg-kick and fired his first pitch, a 96-mph fastball, by Miami leadoff hitter Jazz Chisholm Jr. for strike one.

Buehler hit 97 mph with his seventh pitch of the game, a fastball that Chisholm fouled off, and just for good measure, Buehler touched 97.6 mph with his eighth pitch, which was also fouled off by Chisholm.

The rest of his return from a nearly two-year absence was a bit of a mixed bag, with Buehler getting tagged for three runs and five hits in the first two innings before blanking the Marlins in the third and fourth, but there was plenty from Buehler during a 6-3 victory over the Marlins for the Dodgers to be encouraged about.

Buehler needed 49 pitches to complete the first two innings, in which he gave up RBI singles to Bryan De La Cruz and Jesus Sanchez in the first and Nick Gordon’s solo home run — which a leaping right fielder Andy Pages got his glove on before it bounced over the wall — in the second.

But he struck out two of four batters in a scoreless third, Jake Burger looking at a 92-mph sinker and Josh Bell swinging at a 92-mph cut-fastball, and he whiffed Gordon with an 80-mph curve and got Nick Fortes to ground into a double play in a scoreless fourth, needing 28 pitches to complete his last two innings.

That finished a four-inning, 77-pitch start in which Buehler gave up three runs and six hits, struck out four and walked none before yielding to left-hander Ryan Yarbrough, who gave up one hit and struck out two in three scoreless relief innings to earn the win.

Blake Treinen, pitching for the second time in two days after being activated Sunday, retired the side in order with a strikeout in the eighth, and left-hander Alex Vesia retired the side in order in the ninth for the save.

The first four hits of the game were home runs for the Dodgers, who won for the 12th time in 14 games and have outscored opponents 89-28 and hit 25 homers during that stretch.

Shohei Ohtani followed Mookie Betts’ leadoff walk in the bottom of the first with a two-run shot that traveled 441 feet to center field, his major league-leading 11th homer of the season, and Freddie Freeman followed with a solo shot to center to give the Dodgers a 3-2 lead.

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