Daily News | Taijuan Walker turns in quality start as the Phillies snap their skid, beat the Cincinnati Reds
, following back-to-back duds in which he didn’t survive the fifth inning, Walker stood on the mound in the sixth Friday night, his pitch count nearing 100, and uncorked an up-and-away splitter.OK, so it wasn’t the best start of Walker’s life. But in allowing just one run in six innings of an 8-3 victory over the Reds, he might have authored the best outing yet from the Phillies’ veteran starters .It certainly was much better than anything Walker did in his first two starts.
So, rather than facing Team USA for all the WBC marbles, Walker started a lazy Grapefruit League game against the Tampa Bay Rays two days later. He made only three spring-training starts, plus one in the WBC, and his velocity was down in the finale. The Phillies were unconcerned. But manager Rob Thomson suggested this week that Walker’s lack of command in his first two starts was partially because of his stop-and-start spring.
“Without making any excuses for him, I think so,” Thomson said. “It seems like there’s a part of the game where he loses the strike zone, and that’s not typical of him. He’s a strike thrower. He usually goes deeper in games, and I expect that.”In an attempt to shuffle the deck with the Phillies struggling to hit with runners in scoring position, Thomson moved Marsh into the No. 5 spot.
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