Prior to Thursday’s game, Phillies’ Manager Rob Thomson mentioned that the booing that Taijuan Walker received on Opening Day at Citizens Bank Park would “affect anyone”. When the righty took the mound at the home ballpark, there were minimal boos. Quite the opposite took place in South Philly. Walker was so compelling; he received a mini standing ovation after twirling six shutout innings in a 3-1 win as the Phillies swept the Rockies.
Walker’s Outing
Thomson said leading up to Walker’s start, he had confidence that the 32-year-old could succeed based on what he showed during Spring Training. Walker proved his manager right. Despite working around traffic on the bases throughout his start, he did not allow it to snowball en route to the scoreless outing.
The righty had to work with at least a base runner on the basepaths in four of his six innings, including Mickey Moniak at third with two outs in the fifth after the former Phillies’ top prospect roped a triple that missed leaving the yard by two feet out in the left-center field alley.
“I felt good. I had ten days off, so I felt fresh,” Walker said after the game. “Thought my spring was pretty decent, and I was pretty confident going out of spring, so I felt pretty good about it.”
His final inning may have been his most impressive. It was his second 1-2-3 inning of the outing needing 14 pitches, striking out Hunter Goodman for the final out to put an exclamation point on the quality start with six shutout innings of three-hit ball with four strikeouts.
“I’m really proud of him,” Thomson said postgame. “Like I said prior to the game, he’s a great teammate. He’s always on the top step. He’s always cheering on his teammates. He’s always there. I’m just so happy for him.”
Featuring all six pitches in his arsenal, Walker relied mostly on his cutter, curveball, and splitter to limit the Rockies at the plate while his fastball averaged at 92.8 m.p.h.. all blending into a perfect concoction resulting in 11 whiffs throughout his outing.
“His ability to get ahead of guys and he mixed really well today. I think he kept them off balanced pretty well today and he was able to use all of his pitches effectively,” J.T. Realmuto said.
Phillies’ Offense Still Sluggish Against Starting Pitchers
The Phillies’ bats had plenty of chances to make it a lopsided game, pounding out 10 hits against the Rockies’ starter Antonio Senzatela, who drew the tough-luck loss, going 5.1 innings and allowing an unearned run. The lone run for the Phillies came on an RBI double from Bryce Harper in the fifth inning after Kyle Schwarber reached on a two-base error when Moniak dropped a fly ball in left field.
Thomson would like to see the offensive production happen sooner in games.
“I’d like to score a little bit earlier in the game,” Thomson said. “We tend to wait around a little bit, but that’s the way it is right now. I hope that it will happen where we start scoring early in the first inning and creating havoc. I think we are playing good baseball and I expected that coming out of Spring Training.”
The Phillies’ lineup has now scored just six runs in 35.1 innings against starting pitchers.
Schwarber continued the trend of attacking arms out of opponents’ bullpens, smashing his fourth homer of the season over the right-center field wall that traveled 444 feet and was 109.8 m.p.h. off the bat to make it 2-0 in the bottom of the seventh inning.
In the eighth, Realmuto scored a key insurance run on a wild pitch to make it 3-0.
With the pair of runs scored, the Phillies have now scored 26 runs against relief pitchers in 16.1 innings this season.
Realmuto Keeping it Real
Despite catching a day game after a night game, Realmuto had himself a day at the plate, going 3-for-3 with a walk while stealing two bases. It was his first multi-hit game of the young season. He had four, three-hit games all of last season. The catcher last stole two bases in the same game back on May 16, 2023, and is now at 98 career stolen bases.
“I think he’s healthy right now. I think we put the leash on him last year with the knee issue and the lower body issue. He can run when he’s healthy,” Thomson said.
Defensively, the backstop threw out Ezequiel Tovar trying to steal second base in the first inning. Tovar was initially ruled safe, but Thomson won the challenge, and it resulted in an inning-ending strike him out throw him out double play.
Alvarado the Closer
With Jordan Romano tossing a scoreless eighth inning, Thomson called upon the flamethrower Jose Alvarado for the second consecutive game and third time in the last four contests. However, this was the first time this season in a save situation. Command eluded the southpaw, allowing a walk, a single, and then an RBI single to pinch-hitter Sean Bouchard that ricocheted off of Alec Bohm’s glove on a diving attempt to score Goodman, making it a 3-1 game.
Alvarado made it interesting, loading the bases before striking out Brenton Doyle to slam the door shut to earn his first save of the season and to complete the sweep.
“It’s three out of four [days]. It’s 35 pitches. We’re going to take care of him now,” Thomson said on Alvarado. “The control and command wasn’t there, but that might’ve been from the three out of four.”
The Phillies welcome in the Los Angeles Dodgers for a star-studded three-game series this weekend, with the first game of the series starting on Friday. The first pitch is scheduled for 6:45 p.m.
Jesus Luzardo (1-0, 3.60 ERA) is set to take the mound for the Phillies, facing off against Yoshinobu Yamamoto (1-0, 2.70 ERA).
Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images
