Taijuan Walker Finishes Strong With Eyes on 2022
A heck of a performance in Walker's final start of 2021, and now Tai's got progress on his mind
Image credit: Roberto Carlo
The second half of the 2021 season certainly didn’t turn out as Taijuan Walker had hoped following his pristine first half and subsequent National League All-Star selection.
Though, after making his career-high 30th start of the season on Wednesday night at Citi Field — a gem of an outing, to boot (7.1 IP, two hits, two runs, five strikeouts, three walks) — after racking up just 67 1/3 innings total from 2018 through 2020, the big picture is looking brighter than it has in months for the right-hander.
“I told myself coming into today that I really wanted to finish on a good note,” Walker said after the game. “I wanted to try and go deep into the game and just really attack the zone and feel good about my pitches. Walking off the mound, I felt like I did that today.”
Walker, 29, most certainly accomplished that goal. And it should be an effective motivator for the 6’4” hurler heading into the winter. Unfortunately for the Mets, not much else broke their way outside of Walker’s performance on Wednesday.
Michael Conforto broke a scoreless tie in the fourth with a 111.3 MPH, 469-foot mammoth blast, his 13th home run of the season, to give New York a 1-0 lead.
Brandon Nimmo extended that lead to 2-0 with him and Dominic Smith trading doubles in the fifth, but the Mets grounded into three double plays throughout the night and mostly squandered whatever additional chances they were afforded.
Seth Lugo coughed up the lead in the eighth after inheriting Walker’s final two baserunners, the heart of the order went down without so much of a titter down by one in the ninth, and that was all she wrote.
The wins and losses don’t mean much of anything at this point. New York has already been eliminated from postseason play and will finish below .500 for the fifth time in eight years.
For Walker, who hasn’t penciled in a win on his ledger since July 3 (not that pitcher wins mean anything) and endured quite the drop-off in production as the season wore on (2.66 ERA, 3.06 FIP in the first half; 7.13 ERA, 6.78 FIP in the second half), watching things fall apart after the night he put together had to sting.
Alas, this is baseball. These things happen. Keeping the willingness to draw positives from a less than ideal situation at arm’s reach is a huge plus in this game. Walker seems to have that facet of this chess match sewn up.
“I know my second half was kind of up and down,” he said. “It wasn’t where I wanted it to be. But, there’s a lot to learn about from the second half and I’m gonna go to work and be ready for next year.”
With Jacob deGrom coming off a concerning injury, Carlos Carrasco unable to find much of a rhythm this season, and Marcus Stroman’s impending free agency, Walker should be a pivotal cog in the Mets’ rotational plans heading into 2022.
Tylor Megill, David Peterson, Joey Lucchesi, and whomever else the Mets add to the mix will certainly provide quality back-end-plus depth. But guys like Cookie and Walker, who will presumably make up the meat-and-potatoes portion of the rotation next year, could end up as the catalysts behind this group’s success.
The last home game of the season is on Thursday night against the Fish. If you’re going, soak it in. All of it. The joy of being there, the disappointment of this season, the special times ahead. LFGM, family.
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