Taijuan Walker Had Mixed Results on Saturday In Philadelphia

Taijuan Walker made his fifth start of the season on Saturday night in Philadelphia, and had ups and downs on the rubber. The Mets offense woke up though, which cut Walker a little bit of slack.

After the Mets scored four runs in the top of the first, Walker kept the Phillies off the board in the bottom half of the inning. It wasn’t until the second when the Phillies started to chip away at the Mets lead.

Alec Bohm led off the inning with a 101 MPH line drive single to right field that very easily could have been a double if not for a nice defensive play by Michael Conforto. Nick Maton followed Bohm with a perfectly placed bloop double down the left field line.

After Andrew Knapp hit an RBI groundout to score the first Phillies run and Odubel Herrera popped out with Maton on third, Walker looked like he was going to get out of the inning having only given up one run when opposing pitcher Zack Wheeler came up to bat with two outs.

Wheeler ended up hitting a sharp groundball single through the right side of the infield to score Maton and cut the Mets lead to 4-2 before Walker got Andrew McCutchen to line out to end the inning.

After putting up zeros in the third, fourth, and fifth innings, Walker ran into more trouble in his sixth and final inning.

Alec Bohm came up to the plate to face Walker for a third time and hit a game tying, line drive two run homer that was barely hit high enough to clear the wall in right field. It was the first home run that Walker has given up this year.

Walker managed to finish the sixth inning with the score still tied 4-4. He allowed four runs (all earned), seven hits, one walk, and struck out four. He threw 94 pitches.

He used all of his pitches on Saturday, throwing 38% sinkers, 24% sliders, 15% splitters, 14% four-seam fastballs, and 9% curveballs. His 22% whiff rate was his lowest in a start this season.

Walker is lined up to make his next start on Thursday afternoon in St. Louis against the Cardinals.