OSU connections
Oklahoma State baseball coach Josh Holliday remembers Walker Buehler, the Game 3 starter for the Los Angeles Dodgers, from his time at Vanderbilt.
STILLWATER — Before Walker Buehler pitched the Los Angeles Dodgers to a division title and World Series berth, he was recruited by one Oklahoma State alum and drafted by another.
Buehler will take the mound for the Dodgers in Game 3 of the World Series on Friday, with Los Angeles returning home down 2-0 in the series to the Boston Red Sox. In his rookie season, he posted a 2.62 ERA, capping the regular season with 6 ⅔ one-hit frames against the Colorado Rockies in a Game 163 tiebreaker. Saturday, he allowed one run in 4 ⅔ innings of Game 7 of the National League Championship Series to get the Dodgers to the Fall Classic.
Los Angeles drafted Buehler out of Vanderbilt with the 24th pick of the 2015 MLB Draft, the first draft former OSU baseball infielder Billy Gasparino handled as the Dodgers’ director of amateur scouting.
“He’s always been fearless,” Gasparino said. “He’s always been a guy that we liked the talent, we liked the person, and he just was a really good fit for what we were looking for.”
Gasparino’s roommate at OSU was Josh Holliday, who before becoming the Cowboys’ coach was Vanderbilt’s recruiting coordinator. During a camp the December of his junior year of high school, Buehler, a righthander out of Lexington, Kentucky, impressed the Commodores’ coaching staff not only with his arm but also his demeanor.
“The kid always had a confidence about him that you couldn’t walk away from,” Holliday said. “I think that he’s carried that with him.”
Holliday said Vanderbilt’s staff believed Buehler could be the next of the Commodores’ successful starters, a group that featured eventual first-round picks David Price, Mike Minor and Sonny Gray. Price allowed two runs across six innings Wednesday in Boston’s Game 2 victory.
The Pittsburgh Pirates drafted Buehler in the 14th round of the 2012 draft, but he headed to Vanderbilt. In three seasons there, Buehler went 21-7 with 2.87 ERA, his velocity and draft stock rising as he helped the Commodores win the 2014 College World Series.
Having returned to his alma mater before Buehler made it to Nashville, Holliday watched from afar as Buehler became a player Gasparino and the Dodgers deemed worthy of a first-round selection.
“To know that he might someday supplant Clayton Kershaw as the ace of the Dodgers, no way to know that,” Holliday said, “but that’s why it’s a beautiful thing when a kid goes to college and blossoms.”
Buehler soon underwent Tommy John surgery, but he returned with upper-90s velocity, the Dodgers’ projection of him jumping from the middle of their rotation to the top of it.
“Everything jumped a level where now I think it’s even more in the elite range,” Gasparino said. “I don’t know if we exactly predicted this kind of success.”
Buehler’s moxy, though, never changed. He’ll certainly take that with him to the mound at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.
“He believes in himself,” Holliday said. “You have to to be great, right?”