Taijuan Walker pulled early with injury after rough outing

It wasn’t a great night for Phillies starter Taijuan Walker.

It started promising with a 1-2-3 first inning on just 10 pitches. Then Walker got the first two outs relatively quickly in inning two, loaded the bases and gave up a first-pitch grand slam to former Phillie J.P. Crawford.

The next batter Julio Rodríguez homered with two strikes after home plate umpire Ryan Wills missed a called strike three.

He didn’t allow a run for the remainder of the outing, but the start was cut short after just 68 pitches. The Phillies say Walker was removed from the game with right forearm tightness.

Rob Thomson said Walker complained about the forearm tightness after the second inning. It lingered and Thomson removed him after the fourth inning as a precaution.

Walker said after the game that he is not concerned about the injury, but he’ll see the doctor tomorrow.

“Just want to get ahead of it,” Walker said. “Probably could have kept going. We didn’t want to make it worse.

As Paul Casella of MLB.com noted, Walker’s fastball velocity diminished as the game moved along. He threw a ton of splitters in the fourth inning and only one fastball. That’s because he felt some discomfort when he threw that pitch.

Taijuan Walker's 4-seam fastball averaged 93.7 mph in the first inning tonight. He threw only one 4-seamer in the 4th inning — and it was 91.7 mph.

Season average entering tonight was 93.4 mph.

— Paul Casella (@Paul_CasellaMLB) April 27, 2023

An injured list stint would put the already compromised Phillies rotation in a precarious position. Ranger Suárez isn’t expected to be back until mid-May. Cristopher Sánchez could be recalled in the event that Walker needs to miss time.

The bullpen was spectacular following Walker’s departure from the game. Luis Ortiz, Seranthony Domínguez, Craig Kimbrel and José Alvarado combined to hold the Mariners off the board. The Phillies were able to mount an eighth-inning comeback after falling behind by three in the early going.

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