This story was excerpted from Todd Zolecki’s Phillies Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Charlie Manuel finally had enough.
He had been answering questions for weeks about Carlos Ruiz in the summer of 2008. Chooch was stuck in a season-long slump, batting .207 with a .575 OPS in 61 games through July 6. How much longer could Manuel afford to keep playing him? Why wasn’t he playing Chris Coste more? Why won’t the Phillies call up prospect Lou Marson from Triple-A?
“If we were hitting the ball, I don’t think we’d be talking about Ruiz,” Manuel said.
In other words, if people thought the No. 8 hitter was going to solve the team’s problems, then it really was in deep trouble.
Manuel’s defense of Chooch came to mind this weekend when the Phillies optioned Otto Kemp to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. Make no mistake, Kemp did not play well in 10 games, batting .100 (2-for-20) with one walk and nine strikeouts. He struggled in left field. He certainly didn’t look like the guy the Phillies touted throughout the offseason as an answer to the running-it-back critics. Triple-A will probably be good for him.
But Kemp felt like a fall guy for the team’s troubling production against left-handed pitching.
“Well, it’s not his fault that we didn’t hit,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said.
A far bigger problem for the Phillies has been Taijuan Walker. He has a 9.16 ERA in four starts, which is the highest ERA by a Phillies starter to begin the season in the rotation since Paul Byrd’s 10.19 ERA in 2000. Walker has a 24.75 ERA in the first inning (11 runs across four innings).
But Walker will pitch on Wednesday night against the Cubs at Wrigley Field, albeit not as a starter. The Phillies will use an opener instead.
Thomson hopes the opener can get the Phillies through the first inning without handing a struggling offense a substantial deficit. Then, he hopes that Walker will manage his new first inning better.
Walker hopes so, too.
“I’ve been getting the offense into a rut early,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll put up a zero in the first inning and then I’ll come in just like my normal routine and see how that goes.”
But what happens after Wednesday? Phillies ace Zack Wheeler is expected to rejoin the rotation this weekend in Atlanta. Walker is expected to move to the bullpen at that point.
The Phillies don’t have much starting pitching depth in Triple-A, so the Phillies view Walker as insurance, if another starter or two falls to injury. In Lehigh Valley, starters on the 40-man roster include Alan Rangel (2-1, 1.66 ERA) and Jean Cabrera (0-1, 8.03 ERA). Other starters include Ryan Cusick (0-1, 5.09 ERA), Tucker Davidson (0-1, 8.76 ERA), Connor Gillispie (3-1, 3.63 ERA) and Bryse Wilson (0-1, 12.71 ERA).
Walker bounced between the Phillies’ rotation and bullpen last season. He went 4-7 with a 4.25 ERA in 21 starts. He went 1-1 with a 3.15 ERA in 13 relief appearances.
“I haven’t been pitching the greatest right now, so it’s hard to have an argument right now,” he said about his move to the bullpen. “But obviously, I want to start. And doing the back and forth, it’s kind of tough. I did it last year. It wasn’t easy. But I think just doing that too much, I have to think about my health too, just going back and forth all year. Guys have done it, gotten hurt from it. So just thinking about that too. But again, I don’t really have an argument right now because I haven’t been pitching the best.”
Thomson said he still sees Walker as a contributor to the pitching staff.
Why?
“We think he’s going to get better,” Thomson said.