Mandatory Credit: Mary Holt-USA TODAY Sports

Newly acquired starting pitcher Taijuan Walker made his Mets debut on Tuesday afternoon in the team’s 5-3 win over the St. Louis Cardinals at Clover Park. Despite allowing two runs, the big right-hander said overall he thought his first spring training start in the past three years went well.

“I thought it was good. First of the spring, it was nice to get out there. Against a different team, different hitters. I thought my stuff was good for the first time out there,” Walker said.

Walker cruised through his first inning of work, needing just 11 pitches to retire the Cardinals in order. He struck out Matt Carpenter on a filthy split change, and Nolan Gorman on a fastball on the corner, before getting Yadier Molina to roll over to third to end the inning.

He struggled in his second inning, and was hurt by a leadoff walk. Back-to back-singles from Justin Williams and Andrew Knizner led to the Cardinals’ first run of the game. Williams then came in to score on a sacrifice fly to make it 2-0 St. Louis.

Walker walked one more in the inning, but was able to bounce back and limit any further damage. Following his start, the righty admitted his mechanics were a little out of whack in that second inning, but he thought it was good to be thrown into those situations.

“I was just kind of over-striding, so my timing was off just a little bit, just didn’t make the correction fast enough,” he said. “It was kind of nice to get some traffic on the bases, live BP you can’t really get that kind of action. So it was nice to get those kind of situations out there.”

Overall, deuces were wild for Walker on the afternoon. He allowed two runs on two hits while walking and striking out a pair on a total of 35 pitches. Mets manager Luis Rojas told reporters postgame that Walker got a little fastball happy in the second inning, but he thought it was an overall good day for the righty.

“I like the mix of the pitches he had, his poise on the mound was great, he was good holding the ball, quick to the plate. A lot of good things out of the first time for him pitching in the uni against another uni,” Rojas said.

Walker figures to slot into the fourth spot in the Mets’ rotation behind Jacob deGrom, Carlos Carrasco, and Marcus Stroman. He told reporters he thinks this starting rotation is deep and really strong, and he’s looking forward to going to battle with them this season.