Taijuan Walker, scrappy Mets acing adaptation
Taijuan Walker #99 of the Mets pitches against the Miami Marlins at Citi Field on Saturday, June 18, 2022. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Taijuan Walker thought he had left the problem in San Diego, but when he pitched in the first inning against the Angels last week, it looked as if the opposing batters knew what was coming. Which was, of course, because they almost certainly did.
He was tipping his pitches — something to do with his glove — and he quickly went to work between innings to come back a very different sort of opponent. It was an exercise in adaptation as much as problem-solving, and by the time everything settled down, he left with a win and a season-high 10 strikeouts.
On Saturday, his glove laid mostly still at his hip before he started his delivery, and the Marlins’ bats, too, were stilled. They didn’t look as if they knew what was coming, and if they did, they didn’t have much luck touching it. Walker dominated with all five of his pitches in the Mets’ 3-2 win, headlined by a devastating slider.
In a lot of ways, what Walker has been able to do is a microcosm of what the Mets have managed as a whole.
It seems almost laughable to describe a team this dominant — a season-high 21 games over .500 — as “scrappy,” but it’s also hard not to characterize the Mets that way.
Sure, their lead in the NL East easily survived Atlanta’s now-snapped 14-game winning streak, and Pete Alonso came into Saturday leading all of baseball in RBIs and the National League in homers. But they’ve also taken loss after jarring loss: Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, James McCann, Trevor May and now Tylor Megill until probably at least August. And that’s not even the whole list.
But despite a few missteps and a few very bad starts from their ad hoc rotation, they seem to always figure things out eventually.
There was Walker, who retired 18 straight at one point and allowed one run, two hits and a walk with nine strikeouts in 6 2⁄3 innings. His ERA is a rotation-low 2.88.
Then there’s Carlos Carrasco’s consistency of late — a product, Buck Showalter said, of his feeling healthy. And there’s Chris Bassitt, who, after compiling a 6.82 ERA in the six starts after McCann’s injury, realized he needed to communicate better with Tomas Nido and promptly put together his best outing of the season.
“We have really quality starters,” Walker said. “Everyone goes out and does their job. We just learn from each other and pick each other’s brains every day.”
And all of this doesn’t even touch their bullpen — guys such as Edwin Diaz, who’s having his best season as a Met, Drew Smith, who pitched a pivotal 1 1⁄3 innings, and Trevor Williams, who’s been as reliable a spot starter as necessity could hope for.
And maybe there’s the most notable adaptation of all: None of these guys are named Scherzer or deGrom. Though the duo is making significant strides toward possible July returns, the dependability of the scrappier three-fifths of the Mets’ original rotation, along with their motley crew of rotating relievers, is what’s going to bridge the path to a second half studded by former Cy Young Award winners.
“I think we’ve been able to pass the load around,” Showalter said of his bullpen. “One thing I’ve found through the years is if you ride a hot hand, that hot hand becomes a cold hand . . . so I think they know the respect we have for how hard it is to do their job . . . So far, so good. That’s a very volatile, tough place.”
It is, but you also could argue that the Mets’ success has been largely determined by their ability to navigate volatility — not like a leaky ship taking on water in a storm, but like a sailboat getting pushed forward by a favorable wind.
Showalter preaches that as gospel. When people twitter about his aces coming back, he reminds everyone that usually, when you get one thing back, you lose another. But what sounds like a fatalistic approach at the outset actually is just another tool to prepare, adapt and problem-solve before the inevitable issues materialize.
It is, in short, a way to stay steady. Even when players get hurt. Even when Atlanta wins 14 straight. And even, Walker proved, when the other guys know what’s coming.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
