He is Shocking EVERYONE... | This is HUGE for the Phillies...

There was not a great deal of optimism coming into the season surrounding Tywone Walker and understandably so. The $18 million man had looked like a sunk cost on the Phillies books to this point vastly underwhelming the expectations after he was brought to Philadelphia. But there are some signs of life as Walker has looked like his old self and performed strong on the mound through his first two starts of the season. I want to talk about what's going right with Tywone Walker, if this is sustainable and what this means for the rest of the Phillies rotation. That has been a strong topic of conversation, obviously we know in the offseason bringing in guys like Jesus Lozardo, having a guy like Andrew Painter just waiting to get to the majors here. There's a lot of moving parts to this Phillies team and I did not even acknowledge Ranger Suarez still on the injured list there. So a lot to get into and I do want to start right with Tywone Walker. But before I do that, I want to remind you guys one more time to make sure you are smashing that subscribe button. At this point in time, 37.2% of you guys watching these videos, that's all that have subscribed to this point. So we want to get those numbers up, get this Phillies side just family growing and it helps us out a ton there. Now to talk about Tywone Walker specifically here, this is coming on the heels of 4 2 3rds innings pitch, just 5 hits, 0 earned runs allowed. Did give up 3 walks but struck out 5. Also pitched out of a couple jams in the 3rd inning, he left the bases loaded, got out of there with once again no runs allowed. And this is now 2 consecutive strong performances. That for Tywone Walker specifically, he is one of 4 pitchers in the league with 10 plus That is perfect stuff there and I'm not saying that that will be the Walker experience from here on out, but it's awesome to see him perform like this man and from a human being level, I feel great for the dude. That I have a really high tolerance for guys like Tywone Walker who continue to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, continue to go compete and don't make excuses for themselves. That we saw Walker all last season basically get hit around every time that he was thrown out there on the mound. And to acknowledge exactly what those stats were from last season's perspective, he pitched in 19 games, just 83.2 innings allowed, 24 home runs, 107 hits, that's 11.5 hits per 9 innings, a 7.1 OERA, a 1.7 whip, not what you want to see whatsoever. But once again, what I respect about Tywone is he continued to just take it on the chin. Not once did I hear him make excuses or go out of his way or feel sorry for himself or anything like that. It was all taking things head on. I don't know what happened. I felt fine physically today. I threw my best stuff, just did not have it. It's really frustrating to me. And you know what? We're seeing him bounce back a little bit. To kind of give a write up on a couple other factors that I did want to pull up, shout out to Crossing Broad and my guy Kyle Pagan for this write up where our very own Luke Arcani writes for as well. And this is about Walker. He now hasn't given up a run in 10.2 innings pitched this year. Only four other pitchers in the MLB can say that. The Phillies are also 2-0 in his start. Two straight scoreless outings. His VLOV topped off at 93 and I will note I'm pretty sure I've seen some 94 at least in there. He's got the curveball working again. Absolutely true here. This time last year, through two starts, he had given up 9 runs, 3 home runs, 13 hits and had a 6.39 ERA in 12.2 innings pitched. Thanks to the Phillies' bats, he was 2-0, but we all knew it was a train wreck waiting to happen. And that is not the version of Tywon Walker that we've seen this year. This is a guy who's not only survived his innings pitched, but given this team a damn good chance to win. They won last night's game without a strong performance from Tywon Walker. They straight up don't get that because the bullpen has not held up their end of the bargain as well. We saw that on full display. I was excited to see Joe Ross get a little bit more of a high leverage opportunity that his guy, I think, had shown enough to say he was deserving of a chance and he got smashed for a home run. Absolutely smashed for a home run to tie up that game. Shout out to Trey Turner for sending one over the wall as well to ultimately find a way for the Phillies to win and Jose Alvarado for shutting things down to the tail end there. The bottom line is a win's a win, but that does not happen without 4 2 3rd scoreless of Tywon Walker at the start of the season. Now to get into the big picture conversation here, there's a lot going on with the Phillies rotation. We know some of the big ticket arms, Zach Wheeler, looking like the ace that we know him to be. Jesus Lozardo has been incredible in his beginning of his Phillies tenure. I've been really impressed and I am recording this before Game 3 of the Phillies in Brave Series so hopefully he does not make me sound bad by having a blowout performance there. But beyond that, beyond Lozardo, beyond Zach Wheeler, we know what we got in Christopher Sanchez at this point. A guy who has taken his game to new heights. Aaron Nola, I know this is not the time to guess up the Aaron Nola stock and he certainly has taken his blows through the early part of the season, but we also know who Nola is at this point in this game and I'm confident that he will settle in to be at worst a high level rotational arm there and at best one of the better pitchers in the entire major league. But he very well can be in that conversation for stretches. I'm sure he's going to be just fine in the longer scale. That is sort of the four that are locked in there once again. It is Zach Wheeler, it's Jesus Lozardo, it is Aaron Nola, and it is Christopher Sanchez. That fifth slot is where things get interesting. Now we have Tyjuan Walker obviously starting the season in that way and I think in an ideal world that he does hang on to this for a little bit, but the fact that he is performing well sort of gives some flexibility for this Phillies team. Ranger Suarez will be back soon and I do think is going to start his rehab process, begin throwing again in the relatively near future. When that happens, there is no doubt in my mind that even with Tyjuan playing well, Ranger is the superior pitcher there and I do think he will ultimately be thrown into that mix here. I've also been a big proponent and will continue to bang the table for the pros of a six man rotation. This kind of circles in to the Andrew Painter conversation and when he is ready. But what I think is important about the Andrew Painter conversation is he's not being brought up with the expectation of we need you to carry this team or be a certified top end starter here. I want it to be a pretty pressureless situation when he does ultimately make that major league appearance here and there will be years, years to come where we are talking about Andrew Painter with some high level expectation on his plate. That's just not how I want him to start his major league career and I think the fact that you're not having to bring him in as a solution currently is a really good thing from a mental standpoint, from an overall team standpoint and I think that this gives a lot of flexibility within the Phillies overall. And by the way, Walker's teammates are absolutely noticing as well. I first want to start off with the quote from Bryce Harper who was asked about things and the article writes, Through two starts, Walker has pitched 10 and two-thirds scoreless innings. He won't finish with an ERA of 0.0, 1.1 or 2.0 or likely 3.0, but that doesn't matter right now. What matters currently is that with Rangers as far as out, Walker is filling a role for this Phillies team and doing it capably. Quote, It's been great, Bryce Harper said. He's got the confidence in his ability again and it's fun to watch. 94 ties, a lot better than 89. He's worked his butt off this offseason. After his last start, I went up to him and told him I'm happy for him. He's been through a lot, signed a deal with us to come here, had a couple great years in New York, tough last year for him, and he's finally rounding the corner. I thought he threw great. Walker retired the side 1-2-3 in the bottom of the first with two strikeouts. He hit Sean Murphy with two outs in the second and allowed a single to Brian De La Cruz but escaped with a Jared Kalanick groundout. The Braves loaded the bases after two quick outs in the third, but Walker jammed Riley for a foul at the first base. He induced a 5-4-3 double play after the leadoff single to fourth, combined with a Reese to avoid damage to the fifth. And Rob Thompson also taking note of the strong performance of Tywon Walker, stating, There was a thought that was winter that the Phillies might cut ties with Walker despite owing him $18 million in 2025 and $18 million in 2026. Even with their added starting pitching depth, it's a good thing they didn't. Quote, He's always been upbeat, but there is a little bit of a difference and that's understandable, the manager Rob Thompson said. Last year was rough. I mean, it was rough. I don't really know how a person could go through something like that that tells you a lot about him. If you're any type of leader at all, you love the people that you're around. It's innate. It's in your kids. It's like your kids. So when that stuff happens, bad or good, there's feelings that come out of it for me. So I'm glad he's on the good side of that. Walker is holding a rotation spot until Suarez is ready to return from a back injury. Suarez will begin a rehab assignment Thursday with Clearwater and is expected to pitch three innings. The lefty will likely need at least three rehab starts, maybe four after pitching just five innings in the Grapefruit League games. And I think probably the best case scenario for Tyrone Walker, what he is showing to be capable of, is he can be this kind of on-the-shelf arm. That unfortunately, injuries do happen and as much as in an ideal world that we can lock in the clear rotation that we're going to have every single outing, that is just not life here. That there is a fairly high chance that once in a while Aaron Nola can't go for a start or Christopher Sanchez has a blister or messed up a muscle or whatever the case may be, things happen over the span of an offseason. And having Ty as sort of that sixth guy, maybe even seventh guy depending on how you fully look at this, that you can sort of punch him into those situations here. He's done his job by giving two really strong performances to this Phillies team. This won't be the last time we see Ty Juan and I think, I honestly think there's a decent chance that they try and milk this a little bit. That if Ty can continue to pitch at this level, that you do give him free reign for the long-term. Everything feels a little bit more important because it's the present and we're at the early part of the season, but in the grand scheme of things, when we flash forward to when the playoffs are here and when the postseason, we're talking about Red October, all these things, we're not going to remember Ty Juan Walker throwing these April and May innings here and there. So I do think there's a bit of an innings eater tagline that you could attach to him if the Phillies do lean that direction. But nonetheless, my biggest takeaway to ultimately reflect on, I'm happy for Ty Juan Walker, man. He has been through a lot. He has earned his strength and he's gotten beaten down in this city, with this team, and he continued to battle through it and came out on top. There's not a lot of guys that are cut that way, built that way, or were able to dig themselves out of that. We're talking about legitimately his fastball being 5 miles per hour faster this year from last year. That's real work that obviously the results are speaking for and Ty deserves the utmost credit for all of that. So shoutout to Ty Juan Walker for giving this team a little bit of a pulse through the first start of the season. Shoutout to you guys for tuning into this video here and just one more time, do want to remind you guys once again to make sure you are hitting that subscribe button. Once again, just 37.2% of you guys watching this video right now, that's all that have subscribed to this point. So make sure you're hitting that button, drop a like on this video, your comments below. I'll be back talking to you next time, right here on Phillies Digest. Peace.