Buehler pitched through traffic in most of his outing for Oklahoma City, limited to just 68 pitches thanks to four walks. Next step for the Dodgers right-hander is TBD.

Dodgers starter Walker Buehler had the wildest outing to date of his minor league rehab assignment, walking four on Thursday night for Triple-A Oklahoma City against Sacramento, the Giants’ top affiliate.

Though Dave Roberts said earlier in the week that the hope was for Buehler to throw 80-85 pitches, the right-hander was done after just 2⅔ innings on Thursday, with only 34 of his 68 pitches landing for strikes.

To put those four walks in perspective, they were one shy of Buehler’s professional career high, done in Game 1 of the 2001 NLCS, which was one start after Buehler pitched on three days rest in the Division Series. Buehler has walked exactly four batters five other times in the majors, the last coming on August 8, 2021, in six innings.

Buehler had trouble out of the gate, allowing his first four batters to reach on two walks and two singles. He gave up two runs in that opening frame, and it could have been worse, as one runner was thrown out trying to advance to third base on a pitch in the dirt.

In the second inning Buehler got the first two outs, but then walked two more batters, followed by an infield single to load the bases. Just like the first inning, Buehler got a strikeout to end the second to prevent further damage.

In all, Buehler allowed four singles, four walks, and two runs in his 2⅔ innings, and struck out three.

Some perspective, from Oklahoma City director of communications and broadcasting Alex Freedman, who noted that this was the first time Buehler has ever pitched with a fully-automated strike zone.

The four-seam fastball was about where it’s been for Buehler throughout this rehab, averaging 94.6 mph on Thursday and topping out at 95.9 mph. He also got seven swinging strikes on the cutter alone.

But he couldn’t get his breaking pitches in the strike zone, with 13 of his 15 curves and sliders called balls.

Buehler is now through four minor league rehab starts, three with Oklahoma City and another with Low-A Rancho Cucamonga that was limited to just two innings after getting hit on his right hand by a comebacker. In those four games he has a 4.26 ERA in 12⅔ innings, with 11 strikeouts and seven walks.

Roberts was optimistic on Tuesday about Buehler potentially joining the Dodgers rotation as early as next week, but that was contingent on how his outing went Thursday.

“If all goes well, then there’s a real conversation of whether he’ll join us or not,” Roberts said.

Though after the wildness on Thursday, it might be a hard sell for Buehler to end his rehab assignment considering he’s completed four innings only once in his four starts, topping out at 4⅔ innings on April 6