Taijuan Walker addressed the media after Wednesday night’s redundant outing against the Astros and tried to look at the bigger picture, speaking highly of the Phillies’ offense and looking forward to the postseason chase while knowing all too well he might not be there to see it.
Rob Thomson addressed the media a few minutes earlier and didn’t exactly shoot down the possibility that he won’t.
“We gotta talk about it,” the manager said when Phillies Nation‘s Tim Kelly asked him what to do with Walker’s spot in the rotation. “We gotta discuss it,” he said later when asked the same question in different verbiage.
That kind of talk from a manager — especially one as trusting in his players as Thomson is in his — usually doesn’t spell good things for the player in question. It’s ambiguous enough not to tip his hand or back the front office into anything, distancing enough to spell out the writing on the wall.
That said, there was similar talk on Friday in Kansas City, following what is now probably Walker’s second-worst start of the season — because while he lasted just three innings instead of six, he didn’t allow 13 hits and did strike out a batter, even two. “We’re working through some different scenarios,” Thomson said then about what’s next.
In other words, who knows? More than 36 million elephants in the room have made their voices heard for this long.
It’s not hard to feel for someone struggling as much as Walker is, financial security notwithstanding. On his own volition, Walker noted he was glad to stretch his outing through the sixth — despite the game being effectively over and his presence only giving the home crowd more booing fuel — to give the bullpen a mostly-off day before a big series against the Braves, of which he (perhaps deliberately) will not be a part, irregardless of his roster spot. He wanted to go back out for the seventh. Thomson said so, too. His teammates have said nothing but good things about his work ethic and clubhouse presence.
Thomson, too.
“I feel bad for him,” he said. “I really do. Because I think all of you know how much I respect and love the players. And he works extremely hard. And he’s taken that time on the IL to try and try different things to gain velocity, to gain action on his split. There’s no lack of effort there. And so when guys give effort and it doesn’t work out, and you don’t see the results, it hurts. It hurts me. Obviously it hurts him, too.”
But the Phillies’ lead over the Brewers for the No. 2 seed in the National League, and therefore a bye through the Wild Card Series, shrunk to 1 1/2 games on Wednesday, and they fell a game back of the Dodgers for the No. 1 spot. Every game is a big one.
Their postseason standing could very well be decided by a number of games smaller than the number of Taijuan Walker blow-ups in the past week. It will certainly be decided by a number smaller than the number of losses in games started by Walker, now at 10 (of 14) and nine straight.
Walker said after the game that the outing was a step in the right direction, acknowledging that the results showed otherwise, because of the weak contact and ground balls he induced, as well as the two-seamers inside to righties that he’d worked on in the bullpen between starts.
Professional athletes are wired to think that way, and Walker is no exception. Heck, Thomson spoke in a similar manner in Kansas City. He was encouraged by Walker’s velocity, because it was up in that start. It was down on Wednesday.
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Where was this on Aug. 21, 2021 in San Diego?
