Taijuan Walker struggles early — again — and the Phillies’ bats go silent in 9-0 loss to the Braves
Walker’s season ERA has snowballed to 9.16 over his first four starts. He often fell behind in the count, throwing first-pitch strikes only 48% of the time and showing inconsistent command.
Ahead of Taijuan Walker’s start against the Braves Friday night, the Phillies tried changing up his routine.
The first inning has been especially problematic for Walker this season. In his first three starts, he had a 27.00 ERA in the first inning. The idea was that ramping up the intensity of his pitches at the end of his pregame bullpen and having a shorter layoff time before the beginning of the game would prepare him to start stronger out of the gate.
But following Friday’s 9-0 loss to Atlanta, the search for a solution will continue.
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Before recording the first out of the game, Walker loaded the bases by issuing two walks and a single. He managed to limit the damage to two runs on an RBI groundout and a single, but it already felt like the game was teetering on disaster.
The altered routine helped Walker’s velocity tick up, and he touched 94 mph with his fastball. But he struggled with command.
“I wanted to come out firing,” Walker said. “Maybe just overthrowing a little bit. A little erratic with everything. Just wasn’t too aggressive in the zone. I feel like the walks right now have been killing me, and extending the innings.”
That disaster officially struck the next inning when Austin Riley teed off on a cutter for a three-run, opposite-field homer. The Braves put up four runs on four hits in the second to put the Phillies in a 6-0 hole. They tacked on one more for good measure in the third, when Dominic Smith homered on a splitter for a 7-0 Atlanta lead.
Walker often fell behind in the count, throwing first-pitch strikes only 48% of the time. He had inconsistent command, walking three over four innings. And when he got out of the zone, Braves hitters only chased 20% of the time.
Walker’s season ERA has snowballed to 9.16 over his first four starts.
Thomson said “as of now,” Walker is still planned to make his next scheduled start on Wednesday in Chicago. A rotation reinforcement will be on its way soon, as Zack Wheeler is making his fifth rehab start in double-A Reading on Sunday and may be activated after that.
Even before his struggles escalated this season, Walker seemed like the likeliest candidate to move to a bullpen role once Wheeler was ready to make his return from thoracic outlet decompression surgery.
“I’m not trying to go out there and strike out 15 people,” Walker said. “My goal is to try to give the team the best chance to win. I haven’t done that yet.”
The bullpen took over in the fifth, and Tim Mayza and Tanner Banks combined to hold the Braves off the scoreboard for the next three innings. But Atlanta starter Martín Pérez became the latest lefty to confound the Phillies offense.
They did have their chances. The Phillies loaded the bases with one out in the first when the game was still within reach, but Edmundo Sosa swung at three pitches outside the zone to strike out and J.T. Realmuto flew out.
The Phillies are hitting .179 and have a .555 OPS against left-handed pitchers this season.
“There’s always a sense of urgency,” said Kyle Schwarber. “It’s on a daily basis. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a 20-game win streak or a 20-game losing streak. There’s always a sense of urgency. Sense of urgency to go out there and win a baseball game.”
Bryce Harper accounted for three of the Phillies’ four hits against Pérez, with two singles and a one-out triple into the right field corner. He was stranded at third base when Sosa popped out and Realmuto lined out.
All three of Harper’s hits came off Pérez’s sinker. The pitch only averages 90.8 mph, but Harper was the only Phillie able to do anything with it.
“Pérez, he can pitch, but he’s not gonna overwhelm you with his velocity,” Thomson said. “So you really have to stay in the middle of the diamond, stay on it.”
Both Harper and Kyle Schwarber also hit deep flyouts to the warning track that the wind helped keep in the ballpark. But the Braves seemed unaffected by the elements. Michael Harris II homered off Orion Kerkering in the eighth and Riley homered off Chase Shugart in the ninth.
“We hit some balls hard. Didn’t have much to show for it,” Thomson said. “On the pitching side, four walks and four home runs. That’s tough to come back from.”
Trea Turner hit a two-out single in the ninth, but Schwarber grounded out to cap their seventh loss of the season by a margin of five runs or more. Loud boos followed the Phillies off the field as their record dropped to 8-11.
“At the end of the day, it comes down to executing,” Schwarber said. “You just got to be able to execute. And we didn’t execute tonight, and they did.”