Taijuan Walker cannot, in good conscience, start another game for the Phillies
He's healthy and only 33 years old, but has the fifth worst ERA among starters this season. The Phillies cannot afford this. There’s rubber left on those tires — just not as a starting pitcher.
If the Phillies’ slow start eventually costs Rob Thomson his job as manager, the epitaph on the headstone of his career as the Phillies manager should read this: “I thought that ‘Tai’ had good stuff.”
That was Thomson’s unprovoked review of Taijuan Walker’s 2026 debut start, in which Walker surrendered seven runs in 4⅔ innings.
It was approximately the 20th time Thomson carried water for Dave Dombrowski’s biggest mistake as Phillies president.
Walker lost that game to the Nationals. He’s lost two of his other three starts, too.
His 9.16 ERA is fifth-worst among starters this season. His 5.14 ERA is fourth-worst ERA among starters with at least his 71 games started since Dombrowski signed him for four years and $72 million in 2023. His 5.82 ERA among pitchers with at least 40 starts is dead last.
As such, Thomson and Dombrowski cannot, in good conscience, let Walker start another game as a Philadelphia Philly. It’s just not fair to the rest of the players.
Start Alan Rangel, who’s got a 1.66 ERA with triple-A Lehigh Valley.
For that matter, they might as well start utility player Dylan Moore. He’s already had to pitch twice on the bad ends of blowouts, and his ERA is almost four runs better than Walker’s.
Thompson, in his fifth season as the Phillies manager, has done nothing better than to shield underperforming players from criticism. The struggles of Alec Bohm, Johan Rojas, Trea Turner, and good ol’ Craig Kimbrell all were, at one point or another, gently spun by the earnest and capable manager. He even caped for his nemesis, Nick Castellanos.
But Topper has spent more energy casting Walker as a competent major-league starter than President Donald Trump has spent casting Iran as a successful military operation.
Asked Friday night, after Walker gave up seven runs before he recorded eight outs against the Braves, if Walker would make his scheduled start Wednesday, Thomson replied, “As of now.”
» READ MORE: Taijuan Walker struggles early — again — and the Phillies’ bats go silent in 9-0 loss to the Braves
Inscribe that on Topper’s headstone, too.
It’s getting ridiculous. Walker has surrendered at least five runs in nine of his 40 starts since 2024. Assuming the Phillies’ bullpen allows, on average, one run or four in three innings of relief, that means the offense has to score seven runs to win in almost 25% of Walker’s starts, which is absurd. Teams average about 4.5 runs per game, and the Yankees last year led the majors at 5.2.
The Phillies cannot afford this sort of incompetence. They are a high-end team coming off two straight division titles and four straight playoff appearances. They have a crop of 30-something stars whose window in which they can reasonably expect to win is rapidly closing.
The first step is to designate Walker for assignment, hope he clears waivers and then accepts the role at triple-A, where he can reinvents himself as a full-time reliever. He can whittle his arsenal to two or three pitches instead of six, and maybe increase the velocity on his sad 92-mph fastball. He’s healthy and only 33 years old. There’s rubber left on those tires.
Just not starting-pitcher rubber.
The primary job of a typical starter is not to dominate the other team, it is to give his own team a chance to win. At this point, and at so many points in the past, Walker has failed to give his team a chance to win.
Walker is bad right now, and he’s been pretty bad for most of his period of employ in Philadelphia. If there is a sense of impending doom in the stands at Citizens Bank Park when he pitches, imagine what that sense must be like inside the clubhouse?
Help is on the way.
Staff ace Zack Wheeler is scheduled to pitch Sunday in double-A game that could serve as his dress rehearsal before returning from surgery to address thoracic outlet syndrome. Nobody’s comparing Wheeler, a Hall of Fame-caliber pitcher, to Walker, but Wheeler obviously will replace Walker in the rotation.
But that doesn’t mean Walker won’t start again. Pitchers get hurt. Walker was slated to pitch out of the bullpen last season but he was the replacement in the rotation for Ranger Suárez, Aaron Nola, and Wheeler. He was not especially good.
» READ MORE: Taking stock of the Phillies’ start: What’s worth worrying about (and not), Zack Wheeler’s return, and more
For whatever reason, be it command, velocity, movement, or predictability, major league baseball as a whole has figured out what it takes to beat Walker. He cannot, despite all the technology at his disposal, and despite having an elite defensive catcher, and despite having a spectacular pitching coach, adjust to what the league is doing to him.
This crisis would be slightly less alarming if starters Christopher Sánchez, Jesús Luzardo, and Nola were pitching better. The entire staff has the third-worst ERA and has allowed the second-most hits in baseball. But most of the staff has more recent success.
At this point, Walker has shown again and again and again and again, in four years, that he is not dependable. He is professional, committed, talented, and dedicated, and he’s an excellent teammate, willing to provide any service necessary.
But he’s not an $18 million starting pitcher. Pretending that he is does a disservice to the rest of the roster that is trying to carry him — not to mention the fans, who pay his salary.
Gage Wood might have pitched the best game in college baseball history 10 months ago. Now, with Andrew Painter in the majors, Wood is the Phillies’ top pitching prospect. The 22-year-old righty joins Phillies Extra, The Inquirer’s baseball podcast, to discuss his strong start to the season. Watch here.
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Previous episodes: Scott Boras | Brian Barber | Aaron Nola | Justin Crawford | Garrett Stubbs | Kyle Schwarber | Brad Keller | J.T.Realmuto | Orion Kerkering | Whit Merrifield
