Latest Taijuan Walker implosion has a bright side for Phillies fans

The Philadelphia Phillies swapped start dates for Taijuan Walker and Cristopher Sanchez this week, allowing the former to battle the Houston Astros instead of the Atlanta Braves. The goal was to give Philadelphia a leg up in their forthcoming divisional showdown, but Houston's offense, well — let's just look at the box score.

Walker went six innings deep against the Astros in Wednesday's series finale. He allowed 13 hits and six earned runs, tallying a whopping zero strikeouts. This comes on the heels of an awful three-inning, six-run outing against the Kansas City Royals last week. At the time, Rob Thomson appeared to leave the door open for a drastic rotation change. Instead, he just switched the order a bit.

Now, it will be increasingly difficult to justify keeping Walker in his current role. The money is an unfortunate factor — he's due $36 million through 2024 and 2025 — but the Phillies are gunning for a World Series title. They can't let feelings or optics get in the way of the best baseball move.

Walker needs to be demoted to the bullpen, if not outright cut or sent to the minors. The Phillies aren't exactly ripe with replacement options following Spencer Turnbull's season-ending injury, but even the ice-cold Tyler Phillips is a meaningful improvement over Walker. Not to mention, there's actual upside there.

If there is a positive takeaway from Walker's embarrassing performance on Wednesday, which featured rather extensive boos from the hometown fans, it's that he cannot possibly start another game for the team... right?

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Another Taijuan Walker dud should force Rob Thomson, Phillies to take action

The social media reactions to Walker's egregiously poor performance have been gold. Perhaps that is a second silver lining. Few fanbases know how to stew in misery better than Philadelphia.

On a more serious note, this has to stop. Now. Walker is handing away victories. It's impossible to expect any other outcome when Walker takes the mound at this point. Unless you're a fiend for Breaking Run Value, there isn't a single statistical indicator to suggest that Walker can rebound from this putrid stretch.

Walker is now 3-5 on the season with a 6.50 ERA and 1.64 WHIP through 14 starts (70.2 innings pitched). He has been trending in the wrong direction, too, with his velocity on the decline (and the velocity of opposing hits on a steep incline). Walker has long been out of the running for postseason starts, but the Phillies cannot afford to forfeit every fifth game in a tight race for the No. 1 seed.

Rob Thomson is clearly getting impatient. Moving Walker's start to Wednesday and keeping him far away from that Braves matchup was a sign of the shifting tides. Still, losing a game to the Astros is just as detrimental, especially after Philadelphia managed to string together a few strong performances and finally build up positive momentum. All the good vibes died as soon as Walker stepped foot on the bump.

How Philadelphia navigates the financial implications of Walker's contract moving forward should be interesting, but they can't keep starting him. Not for all the money in the world.