Why Dave Roberts pulled Clayton Kershaw, but not Walker Buehler

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts allowed Walker Buehler to finish his complete-game shutout on Monday, avoiding the controversy that came from Clayton Kershaw’s ‘perfect game’

The complete game is dead, as much of a relic of a bygone era as rotary phones and transistor radios. Starting pitchers are throwing fewer innings and pitches than ever before. Managers wear out a path trudging out to the mound to call in yet another reliever, nearly all of them capable of throwing 95 mph or higher.

So it came as a surprise when Dave Roberts, manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers who had already made the most controversial pitching change this season, allowed his starter, Walker Buehler, to go back out for the ninth inning in Arizona against the Diamondbacks on Monday. Buehler was at 98 pitches, had retired 13 straight, and had allowed only two base hits. He was in total command.

His teammates tried to give him high-fives and pats on the back coming off the field after the eighth, congratulating him on a job well done. But Buehler had none of it. He had never thrown a complete-game shutout in his career and, with his first firmly within his grasp, wanted to keep going. Roberts, trusting his ace, let him.

“Once he got through the seventh inning I thought, he didn’t labor, there was no stress, he had command of his entire pitch mix, and I thought there was a good chance,” Roberts said. “After coming out of the eighth inning he said, ‘I’m not coming out of this game,’ and I trusted him. I believed him.”

Roberts had Craig Kimbrel warming up in the bullpen just in case, but he wouldn’t be needed. Buehler gave up one more hit in the ninth but otherwise made quick work of the Diamondbacks to earn the 4-0 victory. His stuff hadn’t lost any of its effectiveness; he was still touching 96 mph on his fastball in the ninth, four of his eight fastest pitches of the game coming in the final inning. It was the first shutout of any pitcher this season, the first complete game, and only the second time a starting pitcher had even faced a batter in the ninth this year.

Roberts made a much different decision less than two weeks ago. On April 13, Clayton Kershaw retired the first 21 batters he faced in Minnesota and was working on a perfect game heading into the eighth inning. The Twins weren’t giving him much trouble, but there were other factors working against him: his health and the weather.

Kershaw missed two months last season with a left elbow injury and didn’t pitch in the postseason after experiencing forearm discomfort. Having to watch his teammates try to win the World Series from the dugout was something he never wants to do again. After throwing just 11 innings in the shortened spring training, and with the temperature in Minnesota approaching freezing, Kershaw and Roberts thought the 80 pitches he threw were enough. He was lifted from the game, his quest for baseball immortality coming to a sudden end. Kershaw admitted afterward it was the right decision.

Buehler had none of those concerns on Monday. He’s seven years younger than his future Hall of Fame teammate and has nearly 2,000 fewer innings on his arm. He also wasn’t making his season debut, having started three games already this season. The Dodgers have an off day on Thursday, so Buehler will get an extra day before making his next scheduled start on Sunday.

Complete games are becoming extinct in a more analytical game

A pitcher finishing what he started was once commonplace. In 2022, with analytics showing the dropoff in performance as a pitcher faces a lineup the third time through, it’s almost unheard of. The 108 pitches Buehler threw were the most by any starting pitcher this season. It took 244 games before a starter threw a complete game. Just 22 percent of all starts last at least six innings so far this year; a decade ago, 63 percent of starts went six innings or more at this same point in the season.

Long gone are the days of starting pitcher duels, when a Tom Seaver or a Steve Carlton would battle with his counterpart. Pitch counts meant nothing as long as the pitcher could just put some ice on his arm after the game. In 1980, Rick Langford threw 22 straight complete games, the same year his Oakland Athletics had 94 as a team. Last year, four teams didn’t have any starter throw a complete game and no team threw more than five. Starting pitchers are throwing less than five innings per start and an average of 77 pitches this season; 20 years ago, they were throwing 95 pitches a start and six innings.

The Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright leads all active players with 27 complete games; Gaylord Perry once threw more in three straight years from 1972-74. Wainwright and Kershaw are the only active pitchers with at least 10 career shutouts; Hall of Famer Jim Palmer threw 10 just in 1975. There were only 24 nine-inning complete-game shutouts thrown in 2021.

What Buehler did on Monday is rapidly disappearing from the game, for better or worse. Roberts allowed him to have his moment, one few pitchers in today’s game will ever get the opportunity to enjoy.