Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

With just 15 games left in the 2021 Mets’ season, the Mets have close to no room for error left if they want to play postseason baseball this year. They turned to Taijuan Walker on Friday night against Zack Wheeler and the Philadelphia Phillies. Walker’s season has been a tale of two halves. After going 7-3 with a 2.66 ERA over 17 starts and making his first career All-Star Game, Walker has gone 0-6 with a 7.38 ERA over ten starts since the All-Star break. After allowing five runs in the second inning against the Yankees in his most recent start, Walker retired the final thirteen batters he faced. He looked to build on that successful run from his start against the Yankees in his start on Friday night.

Walker’s night began with Odubel Herrera flying out to Jeff McNeil in left field. Met killer Jean Segura followed with a groundout to third base. After an eight-pitch battle, Walker got Bryce Harper to fly out to the warning track in left field to complete a 1-2-3 first inning.

J.T. Realmuto led off the second inning with an inside-out bloop single to right field to end Walker’s perfect streak at 16 batters. After Realmuto stole second base, he tagged up and moved to third on a Didi Gregorius fly out to left field before scoring on a sacrifice fly from Freddy Galvis. Walker struck out Brad Miller to end the inning with just the one run scoring.

The third inning began with some defensive help for Walker. Michael Conforto made a running over-the-shoulder catch on a fly ball from Matt Vierling. Wheeler followed with a ground out to Francisco Lindor at short. Herrera hit a soft line drive to Brandon Nimmo in center field to retire the side in order for the second time in three innings.

Walker started the fourth inning with a soccer-style assist. Segura hit a ground ball up the middle, but Walker stuck his foot out towards it and directed it straight to Lindor who made the play and threw Segura out at first. Harper, arguably the league’s hottest hitter since the All-Star break, followed with a one-out double to right-center. Walker fell behind Realmuto, but came back and struck him out on a 3-2 slider away before Gregorius grounded out to Villar at third to end the inning.

With the game tied again going into the fifth inning, Walker retired Galvis on a soft ground ball back to him before allowing a long home run to Miller to give the Phillies their second one-run lead of the night. Lindor made a nice back-handed play on a ball to his right from Vierling before Wheeler struck out to finish the inning with the Mets once again trailing by one.

With his spot in the order due up leading off in the bottom of the inning, Walker was lifted after five innings after throwing 88 pitches.

Walker’s final line: 5 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 3 K.

After a strong finish to his last start following a tough second inning that included possible pitch tipping and whistling allegations, Walker followed with five solid innings and nearly matched Wheeler pitch for pitch. While it was definitely the right decision by Luis Rojas to pull his starter with his spot in the batting order leading off the bottom of the fifth and the team down by a run, Walker felt he earned the opportunity to pitch deeper into the game.

“I don’t make the call,” Walker said. “That’s on them and it is what it is. I really felt like they should have given me a chance to go back out there for the sixth. It’s frustrating.”

Although Walker definitely deserved a chance to take the mound for the sixth inning based on his performance, the game situation did work out in his favor. With five innings on Friday, Walker is up to 149 2/3 innings on the season. He threw just 67 1/3 innings from 2018-2020.

His struggles in the second half can most likely be attributed to the workload that he hasn’t had since he threw 157 1/3 innings for the Diamondbacks in 2017, but his recent run of success after a mostly shaky second half can give the Mets some comfort that he can be relied upon to rack up plenty of innings for the Mets in 2022 and have sustained success.