Mandatory Credit: Jessica Alcheh-USA TODAY Sports

Taijuan Walker provided the New York Mets with his longest start of the season before the team fell 2-0 to the Houston Astros on Wednesday afternoon at Citi Field.

The 29-year-old put the team on his shoulders for 7 1/3 shutout innings. He limited the Astros to four hits and two walks, while striking out three along the way.

While Walker was great, Justin Verlander was even better. The two-time Cy Young Award winner matched zeroes with Walker while he was on the mound and went eight scoreless innings in total.

“Our guy matched him for the most part,” said Buck Showalter. “We were in that ballgame because of Tai Walker.”

Walker started his outing off well as he used nine pitches to toss a perfect first inning. He picked up his first strikeout of the day after getting Jeremy Peña to swing on an 84 MPH slider that grazed the outside of the zone.

In the second inning, Walker got his first two batters faced to pop out and ground out, before allowing Yuli Gurriel to line a double to left field. Walker was able to strand Gurriel at second by getting Aledmys Díaz to ground out to third base.

Walker allowed Jason Castro to reach base on a leadoff single to start off the third inning. He allowed contact to his next three batters faced, but all three hit into forceouts at second base to end the inning.

Walker faced the most adversity from his outing during the fourth inning. He walked Yordan Álvarez on seven pitches and allowed a base hit to Alex Bregman to put runners on first and second with no outs. However, Walker was then able to strike out Kyle Tucker and get Gurriel to ground into a 5-4-3 double play to end the inning.

In the fifth inning, Walker received some excellent defensive help from Luis Guillorme to start the inning. Guillorme played the ball on a hop deep behind the third base bag and threw out Diaz at first. Walker followed that up by striking out Castro on an 89 MPH splitter for his third and final strikeout of the day. He then got Jake Meyers to ground out to retire the side in order.

Walker continued to roll in the sixth inning. He put together his second-straight perfect frame on only eight pitches.

The seventh inning didn’t come as easily for Walker, but he was still able to keep the Astros off the board. After getting Bregman to ground out to third, he walked Tucker. He bounced back by getting Gurriel to fly out, but then allowed a single off the bat of Diaz. With runners at first and third and two outs, Walker was able to get Castro to ground out on a softly-hit ball to second base.

Walker’s day was supposed to come to an end after the seventh, but the 2021 All-Star did not want things to end there.

“They were gonna take me out, and I said, ‘let me get the last guy and then you can do whatever after that,'” said Walker.

Walker indeed came back out for the eighth and retired Meyers on a ground ball to third after an eight-pitch battle. After getting the first out of the inning, Showalter replaced him with Edwin Díaz.

“We talked to [Walker] between innings,” said Showalter. “He actually brought it up. He could have continued to pitch, but I liked Edwin there. Worked out.”

Walker’s performance against the Astros marked his fourth-straight quality start, and his sixth overall on the season in 13 starts.

Walker was also efficient in the start, needing only 93 pitches to go 7 1/3 innings. Walker has only gone over 100 pitches in one of his 13 starts this year.

Part of Walker’s success so far this season can be attributed to his splitter. He has been utilizing it at a career-high 29.7% of the time and is limiting opponents to a .155 batting average and .186 slugging percentage on the pitch. Furthermore, his splitter has the highest whiff percentage (30.8%), strikeout percentage (29.7%), and put away percentage (21.9%) among all his pitches.

Through the first three months of the season, Walker is now 6-2 and has pitched to the tune of a 2.72 ERA and 3.11 FIP over 72 2/3 innings, while striking out 52.