Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports

Taijuan Walker took the hill Thursday night as the Mets opened up a four-games series in Philadelphia, and while the offense woke up dramatically towards the end of the game, and and relief pitchers stepped of mightily, the game didn’t go nearly as planed early on.

The Phillies tacked on four runs in the first inning as the heart of the Phillies lineup in Bryce Harper, Nick Casellanos and J.T. Realmuto each drove in a run. Walker’s 2016 trade partner Jean Segura capped off the inning with an RBI single to make it a 4-0 ballgame, right before Walker was able to get a fly out and a groundout by Odúbel Herrera and Johan Camargo.

Quite possibly the worst inning by Mets pitcher this season saw Walker pitch more balls (14) than strikes (11), which is utterly abysmal. Walker seemed like he was on track to turn things around in the second inning, after giving up two-straight leadoff hits, which were followed by three-straight outs, including a Castellanos RBI groundout though, to end the inning. Walker ended the third inning by catching by Camarago and new Mets killer Kyle Schwarber swinging to end the inning.

Things took the turn for the worst in the fourth, which would inevitably end Walker’s night, as he gave up back-to-back home runs off of consecutive pitches to Harper and Castellanos. Walker ended up going four innings pitched, while allowing nine hits, two walks, seven runs (six earned), and striking out only two batters. Walker just didn’t look great from the start. His stuff was off, and his ERA imploding from 0.00 to 4.91 says it all.

While Walker was spotless in his first two starts of the season, both against the Phillies, the third time was the charm for the Phils offense.

Velocity was down a bit (0.4 mph on fastball) for Walker in the outing, but likely nothing to get alarmed about. The average movement on all of his pitchers was right in line for Walker as well. His biggest issue for the night was the command of all his pitches, but in particular his slider. He threw 22 sliders on the night and didn’t get a single whiff. Both of the home runs he allowed were on sliders.

On the bright side, Walker’s next start is slated to be on May 11 against the currently 9-18 last place Washington Nationals. Hopefully Walker can get back to putting up zeroes in his next start.