Game 98: Yankees (Montgomery) at Mets (Walker)

Scouting report from reddit on Taijuan Walker:

On to the Subway Series we go. In the first game the yanks are going to face the rigthy Taijuan Walker.

He owns a 2.55 ERA over 91.2 IP this year.

some nuggets:

3 years ago Walker changed his approach drastically. He was a 60 % 4sm Fastball Pitcher with some extra pitches. Then he started throwing his splitter more and added a slider (against righties) to his mix. 30% of his Pitches are 4sm Fastballs, another 30% are Splitters, 15% are Sliders and the Rest of his pitches are either Sinkers, Curveballs or Sliders. So when you get up to the plate you cant really guess what he will throw you compared to a few years back.

Now obviously the same thing every pitcher will do, walker will do as well: when he gets behind he throws more 4sm and Sinkers and when he gets ahead in the count the breaking stuff will come (Splitter, Curve, Slider). His preferred "strikeout" Pitch is the Splitter, against both lefties and righties. Meanwhile against righties the slider gets used in almost every count evenly (outside of 2-0 3-0 and 3-1)

Walker has great stats and Splits overall. No big differences between righties and lefties ( very slightly worse stats), keeps being great with higher pitch count. The only thing that would be "concerning", would be his expected ERA at 3.61. Still great anyway. His Fip sits at 2.98 and his xFIP at 3.70. So i would think Walker got a bit lucky but has been overall really great so far.

Consistency is key. That could be walkers motto. Since May 17th Walker has allowed no more than 2 ER in a game and has been going 6+ IP in 9 out of 11 Games. Pretty Good if you ask me.

Walker has been fantastic so far this Season and would probably be the ace in the Rotation on most teams. Well he isnt on the Mets because they have a guy tomorrow that has been even better. How about the yanks end his streak of not allowing more than 2 ER and give him more No. 2 stats.