What does Edward Norton say in Fight Club? "Losing all hope was freedom?" Maybe that's the principle the Philadelphia Phillies fans needed to adhere to about pitcher Taijuan Walker. Maybe only when you had given up all hope that he could be a regular rotation arm could he emerge as the team's unsung hero in the playoffs as a starter or inning-eating reliever.
Or, maybe he's just having a good stretch. I don't know. After going six innings and giving up one run against the Reds on Monday, Walker now has two straight quality starts and has looked mostly solid after being placed back in the Phillies' rotation at the start of July. For the season, he has a 3.39 ERA, a WAR of 1.6 and an ERA+ of 131, which would be his best in a full season since 2017.
When he's on his game, Walker is clearly more than just an arm the Phillies reluctantly toss into games. He's just not always on his game.
Walker has talent to be a starter, but...
It's not always evident. He'll go through stretches where six innings of productive pitching seems like the norm, and then things will start to get tenuous, and before you know it, Walker hasn't put together a quality outing in a month.
But with Aaron Nola still on the IL and no pitchers in the Phillies' farm system ready to join the team's race for an NL East crown quite yet, Walker is the only logical choice left for manager Rob Thomson in the starting rotation. Adding Jhoan Duran at the deadline and David Robertson in free agency beefed up the bullpen considerably, so Walker isn't needed in any high-leverage situations anymore.
So, as it stands, Walker is probably going to stay in the rotation. Maybe a demotion to the 'pen was what he needed to bounce back.
Can Aaron Nola be relied upon when he returns?
This is the question that will determine Walker's place in the Phillies' rotation for the rest of the season and the playoffs. Nola is currently on a rehab assignment in Triple-A, but he was having by far the worst season of his Phillies' career even before the injuries. Nola is 1-7 with a 6.16 ERA on the season. Granted, that's only through nine starts and it looked like Nola was turning a corner in the few starts before he got totally shelled by St. Louis and hasn't pitched in the big leagues since, but Nola's velocity was down considerably and he looked like a shell of his former ace self in the starts he made.
Maybe the Phillies shorten their rotation in the playoffs and just throw their top four guys with Walker as sort of a roving reliever if the team needs innings in a pinch. Maybe — bear with me here — Nola gets moved to the bullpen if Thompson doesn't trust him starting.
Too many pitchers is a better problem to have than not enough pitchers. If Walker and Nola are both good enough to get real opportunities in October, then something went right.