Phillies play worst defensive game of season, Walker struggles in loss to Giants originally appeared in NBC Sports Philadelphia
SAN FRANCISCO – Six games in, Taijuan Walker is still looking.
Looking for consistency, looking for confidence, looking for your best shot.
Walker suffered the loss to the Phillies on Memorial Day, allowing six runs in six innings. The Phils dug themselves out of an early three-run hole, then came back to take the lead on four runs from Blake Snell before Walker gave the lead back in the fifth.
The Phillies lost 8-4. They have lost consecutive games for the first time since April 23 and 24 in Cincinnati and are 1-3 on their road trip to Colorado and San Francisco.
Walker hasn’t felt or commanded his split all year since his brief spring training. It’s his best pitch and has held opponents to a .210 batting average in 2023. This season? Walker’s opponents are 19-for-37 against the splitter, hitting .514.
It might not be a big deal if Walker had mid- to high-90s velocity with his sinker or four-seam fastball, but his velocity also dropped about 2 mph. He is currently without a storage field.
For what it’s worth, both Walker and manager Rob Thomson thought the right-hander had his best splitter of the season on Monday. Both were happy with its depth.
Walker, who has a 5.51 ERA, wasn’t the only reason the Phillies lost. They committed three errors and all three resulted in runs. Alec Bohm committed two errors at third base and has committed four errors in the last six days. He is discouraged on the field.
Second baseman Whit Merrifield threw a pop-up into shallow right field in the seventh inning, two batters after Bohm’s second error. Shaky defense allowed the Giants to double their lead.
With the men on first and second early in the game, Johan Rojas caught a ball deep in center and threw it to third base, where he had no chance of catching the runner. This allowed the trailing runner to advance to second and both to score about 30 seconds later.
As beautiful as it was in Northern California, it wasn’t a pretty day for the Phillies.
They scored all of their runs in the top of the third and fourth. Kyle Schwarber hit a two-run home run, his first in exactly three weeks. In the fourth, Edmundo Sosa tripled and scored on a wild pitch and Rojas scored on Merrifield. The Phillies stole four bases in that inning alone. They forced Snell to throw 64 pitches in his final two innings, chasing him after four.
But they couldn’t hold on and are 38-17 with ace Zack Wheeler on Tuesday at 9:45 pm ET. The Giants have yet to name a starter.
