Taijuan Walker finally ‘felt normal again’ in first spring training start with Mariners
Taijuan Walker had an eventful return to Cactus League play.
Monday night at American Family Fields of Phoenix, Walker took the mound for just the fourth time since 2017, and the first time back in a Seattle Mariners uniform since 2016.
He threw three consecutive balls to Milwaukee’s Lorenzo Cain, and then one strike before Cain launched a fastball over the left-field fence. Then Brock Holt knocked a single into right.
After that, Walker shook the jitters, and delivered a promising three-inning outing for a 27-year-old pitcher who has been on the mend from Tommy John surgery and subsequent shoulder issues for the past two seasons. He allowed just the one run on four hits, didn’t walk a batter and struck out four on 43 pitches.
“It felt good,” Walker said. “First two hitters a little nervous. I just wasn’t executing. I was just trying to feel my way through and after the second hitter I just relaxed and just started being aggressive.”
What helped him work out those nerves in the first inning? He laughed. He supposed those two hard-hit balls.
“I just wanted to fill up the strike zone,” Walker said. “But, effectively. So, I just started letting it go and started attacking them.”
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Looking to the future
While the Mariners aren’t exactly expected to contend for a playoff spot in 2020, these six weeks of preseason workouts and games will give us a closer look at some of the top prospects — like outfielders Jarred Kelenic and Julio Rodriguez, and former first-round draft pick Logan Gilbert — expected to be key pieces of the club’s future, and some of the young players battling for Opening Day roster spots. We’ll also be able to catch up with the more experienced players — like veteran third-baseman Kyle Seager and ace pitcher Marco Gonzales — already in Seattle’s clubhouse.
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He fooled Brewers superstar Christian Yelich with a curveball for his first strikeout. A double by Keston Hiura followed, but Walker coolly worked out of the traffic by inducing a pop out to the catcher and a routine ground ball to second.
It took him 19 pitches to get through the first, but he needed just 11 in the second and 13 in the third before his night was over. He logged two more swinging strikeouts of Cain and Hiura, and caught Holt looking.
Walker said he felt prepared enough from his bullpen and live batting practice sessions, and the simulated game he threw Wednesday to just let the ball fly.
“The last few in the bullpen, too, I was letting them go,” he said. “I wasn’t worried about that. I was just trying to fill, just place strikes in there. ... The curveball felt really good today. A little surprised by it. I threw some good ones my sim game, but I was surprised to see it was still there again.
“It’s never really been my best pitch. It’s always been fastball-changeup, but it was good to see the curveball was there.”
Walker said his curveball plays “a million times better” than it did when he departed Seattle for Arizona following the 2016 season as part of a five-player trade with the Diamondbacks.
“I switched to a spike curve,” he said. “I’ve tried it before, I just never really stuck with it. In this offseason and in the spring I just said, ‘Screw it, I’m going to stick with it good or bad and just keep throwing it.’ I think I just had to get comfortable with it, and finally I’m to a point where I’m comfortable, where I feel like I can throw it for strikes and throw it for swing-and-miss putaway pitch.”
He gets more break and good action with the spike curveball, and paired with his changeup Monday, he was pleased with how his off-speed offerings played. Three of his four punchouts came on off-speed pitches.
“He always had a good curveball,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “This one is much more consistent. It’s got more bite and more finish to it. With his arm stroke being a little bit shorter he’s able to get his arm out in front and get on top of it. It’s going to be a key pitch for him.
“I thought tonight he threw a lot of changeups. They’re coming out a little hard at 88-89 mph, but it’s got a lot of movement and it kept guys off balance.”
Walker threw just one slider, and wants to implement that more moving forward, but was satisfied with the mix of pitches he threw, including a fastball that consistently reached 94 mph, and how often he stayed in the strike zone.
“I didn’t want to come out here and throw a lot of balls or walk anyone,” he said. “I just wanted to fill the strike zone up and be aggressive and attack them. I feel like I did that today, so I think it’s a good step moving forward and something to build off of.”
And to finally see positive progress against players in jerseys that didn’t look like his was certainly meaningful.
“I think I threw three live BPs in a sim game, all our guys, so it was good,” Walker said. “Big crowd, night game, it felt good — felt normal again.”
The most normal he’s felt since 2017, and he had 18 family members and friends in the crowd cheering him on every time he threw a strike.
“It felt good just being out there and walking off the mound healthy,” Walker said. “It was something that was kind of in the back of my mind coming into it — pitching, how am I going to feel out there? Or how am I going to feel after? I feel really good right now.”
Walker will likely slot in as the fifth starter in Seattle’s rotation this season, behind Marco Gonzales, Yusei Kikuchi, Kendall Graveman and Justus Sheffield, giving him more time to catch up these final two-plus weeks of the spring. Each of his counterparts has already made two or three Cactus League starts.
“I threw 43 pitches today, so I feel like I’m in a good spot with that,” Walker said. “I think I’m just a little bit behind, not too much. I think come season, I feel like I’ll probably be in the back end of the rotation, so I’ll get that extra start at the end of spring training and I think that’ll be perfect.”
Right now, the plan is to build off this start, and get Walker stretched out to throw 60-65 pitches.
“He does look like he’s on track,” Servais said. “Tonight was a big step forward for him getting through three innings. In the first inning I didn’t know how it was going to play out, but once he got rolling, he’s on track. We’ll keep building on that.”
This story was originally published March 9, 2020 at 9:32 PM.
