Your turn, Taijuan Walker.
The veteran right-hander gets his first start of the year Sunday for the Philadelphia Phillies as they try to complete a road sweep of the San Diego Padres.
Walker joins a rotation that has been as good as any in baseball during the season’s first month. Aaron Nola and Ranger Suarez have keyed 9-3 and 5-1 wins in the series’ first two games with eight-inning outings, continuing a trend that has helped Philadelphia start 18-10 and post a National League-low staff earned run average of 3.26.
Nola’s 3.20 ERA is the highest one for a Phillies starter. Even Spencer Turnbull, the man Walker is replacing in the rotation, dealt to the tune of a 1.33 ERA in five starts.
Walker should be able to fit in. He went 15-6 last year for Philadelphia despite a 4.38 ERA, notching career highs in wins, innings (172 2/3) and starts (31). A right shoulder impingement kept Walker on the shelf to start the year but after three rehab starts, Walker and manager Rob Thomson decided he was ready.
“I told them we built up enough,” Walker said the day after his final start at Triple-A Lehigh Valley. “I told them I felt good. I thought my stuff was pretty sharp. … I believe that in a different environment, a little more adrenaline, stuff plays up a little bit more.”
In nine career starts against San Diego, Walker owns a 5-3 record and 3.00 ERA in 48 innings, striking out 41.
The Padres will attempt to snap a three-game losing streak that started with a 10-9 loss Thursday at Colorado, where they blew a 9-4 eighth-inning lead. They have fallen behind 6-0 and 5-0 in the first two games with Philadelphia and mustered little response.
They’ll hope for a better start from Michael King (2-2, 4.11) than he delivered Tuesday night at Colorado, where a five-run fourth inning doomed him to a 7-4 loss. He failed to last the fourth, permitting eight hits and six runs (four earned) over 3 2/3 innings with three walks and five strikeouts.
King will be making his first career start against the Phillies. He worked 1 1/3 scoreless innings out of the bullpen in his only appearance against them while pitching for the New York Yankees, allowing four hits and striking out one in the game on April 4, 2023.
If there was a bright spot in Saturday night’s loss, a game in which Phillies starter Suarez didn’t allow a hitter past first base until Eguy Rosario homered with two outs in the eighth, it was that Adrian Morejon followed starter Dylan Cease to the mound in the seventh and fired three shutout innings.
That gives manager Mike Shildt a fresh bullpen for the series finale.
“That sets us up for our best chance to win,” Shildt said of Morejon’s effort. “And we were able to build him up a little more with his pitch count. His stuff still looked good at the end.”
–Field Level Media
