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Taijuan Walker to make first start of season during San Diego series

Taijuan Walker is set to come off of the injured list this weekend. (Cheryl Pursell)

Taijuan Walker (right shoulder soreness) is set to make his season debut later this week.

He will make his first start with the Phillies on Sunday, April 28 against the San Diego Padres, manager Rob Thomson told reporters in Cincinnati on Tuesday, including Todd Zolecki of MLB.com.

While it’s not 100% official, Walker is expected to replace Spencer Turnbull in the rotation. Turnbull will then move to the bullpen and assume a long man role. Walker starting Sunday gives Cristopher Sánchez an extra day of rest and allows the Phillies to break up the lefties Sánchez and Ranger Suárez. The Phillies could opt to keep Turnbull in the rotation and temporarily go to a six-man rotation, but that’s something the Phillies are more likely to do during the dog days of summer.

The Turnbull experiment has gone as well as anybody could have hoped. He held opponents scoreless in three of his four starts. His 1.23 ERA would be tops among National League starters if he wasn’t two innings short of qualifying as of Wednesday morning. He’ll make one more start for the Phillies on Wednesday in Cincinnati.

Turnbull was never expected to make 25-30 starts for the Phillies this season. He underwent Tommy John surgery in July 2021, missed all of 2022 and only made seven starts for the Detroit Tigers in 2023 after battling a neck and foot injury. He has not thrown more than 56 2/3 innings in a season since 2019.

The Phillies think they can get a little over 100 innings out of Turnbull this year, but those innings will have to be managed. Moving him to the bullpen and re-inserting him into the rotation when needed is likely the plan moving forward with Turnbull.

The Phillies paused Walker’s ramp up at the end of spring training after he reported shoulder discomfort while playing catch near the end of spring training. Walker, who pitched 172 2/3 innings for the Phillies in 2023, made three minor league rehab starts. He threw only three pitches at 90 mph or above in his last minor league rehab start in chilly Scranton with Triple-A Lehigh Valley on Sunday.

The low velocity is concerning considering Walker’s stuff is much more effective when his fastball is in the mid-90s, but we’ll have to wait and see how his first start in the majors this year plays out to really evaluate him.