Taijuan Walker declined a spot on the NL All-Star team
Taijuan Walker is on a roll. He’s won six straight starts and dropped his ERA from 5.65 on June 1 to 4.02. Opponents are batting .192 against Walker over those six games.
On June 1, nobody would have predicted Walker would be in consideration to pitch in the All-Star Game, but that’s a testament to how well he’s bounced back from a slow start.
According to Jon Heyman of the New York Post, Walker was offered a spot on the National League All-Star team as a replacement, but declined to go as he already had plans to spend time with his family during the break.
Walker would have joined Nick Castellanos, Craig Kimbrel and the Phillies coaching staff in Seattle for what would have been his second All-Star nod. Walker spent the first five years of his career as a Mariner from 2013 to 2016.
Walker, 30, is in the first year of a four-year, $72 million deal with the Phillies. His time in Philadelphia got off a rocky start. Five of his first 11 outings were quality starts, but he gave up 23 earned runs over 22 1/3 innings across those six other outings, good for a 9.27 ERA.
Thanks to some mechanical tweaks and a simplified arsenal, Walker has found some consistency and the Phillies hope that trend continues in the second half of the season. Walker is looking to break a two-year streak of disappointing second-half performances. He has compiled a 5.95 ERA over the last two years in the second half.
But for now, Walker has entered the break with momentum on his side. If anything, this year’s Phillies All-Star representatives, Castellanos, Kimbrel and Walker if you count him, is a lesson in patience. It’s never fair to quickly declare an acquisition two months — or may even a year into a contract — a bust.