Taijuan Walker wasn’t going to keep the goose egg earned run average forever — but things certainly escalated quickly.
And unfortunately when it comes to the right-handed pitcher, if it rains, it pours.
The Giants entered Monday night with the second-best winning percentage in the Majors — and in his first real test of the season — Walker faltered in the Phillies’ 10-4 loss at Citizens Bank Park.
The club is now 9-7 on the season and have dropped four of their last five games.
Walker entered the second frame with early run support, an infrequent occurrence through the first 16 games. It was flushed away in a blowout inning from the Giants, who batted through the order and put up six runs.
One play goes differently and the Phillies would’ve gotten out of the inning allowing just one run and still holding the lead. Instead of a double play, a throwing error from Walker sent the ball into shallow center field and play continued.
What happened next gave flashbacks to 2024 Walker with the domino effect in place. He gave up home runs to Tyler Fitzgerald and Willy Adames, both of which hadn’t homered to this point in the season.
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The error on Walker came a few plays after his 28th pickoff since 2015. It’s the most by any right-handed pitcher in that span and third overall in MLB.
Walker turned into a surprising storyline early after his first start of the year against the Rockies, when he pitched six scoreless innings and collected his first win since May of last season.
He then had another scoreless outing against the Braves, and suddenly, the spot in the rotation with the most question marks, showed some promise.
Which leads us to his outing against the Giants: 5.0 IP, 6 H, 6 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 99 P, 2.30 ERA
They say once is an accident, twice is a coincidence and three times is a pattern.
So, were his first two starts a coincidence? Or is the sample size too small to make a fair assessment?
We’ll have to wait and see.
