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When we left our hero last season, he had a dizzying number of ways in which to attack hitters -- especially "fastball, fastball, fastball, waste pitch, waste pitch, fastball."  SSI declared his offspeed game rudimentary.  Lloyd McClendon demurred, gushing enthusiastically "I told the kid, I've had a gutful of horse manure and hype.  It's time to get me some outs."

2014 hitters sat dead blinkin' red on every single Walker pitch, which is why his groan-inducing curves and changeups had pitch values anywhere from +1.00 to +7.00.  This wasn't because they were good pitches; it was because the batter started his swing launch when --- > Taijuan bobbed the tip of his cap at the runner at first.

Six months on, what did SSI grok out of 30-odd Taijuan pitches on Wednesday?  The answer to life, love and hope, no doubt?

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Fastball

The kid takes a little slide step, crooks the ball behind his ear, tosses it nonchalantly in the general direction of home plate, and ... the catcher does one of those Brendan Fraser backward somersaults into the umpire.  And the webbing of his glove?  Remember that joke about the acid that could eat through any substance?  What do you hold it in?

Taijuan was effectively wild.  If you just joined us, this means that he aimed it thigh-high over the plate, and when it missed 1-2 feet in any random direction, you had exactly the same effect as if Doug Fister was painting every side of the rectangle.  3 times, this specifically produced "jam" pitches (on the hands) when the catcher's mitt was Low Away.  As we recall they all got called whiffs or garbage swings.

There's also a certain amount of deception from the short-arm, the long stride, and the downhill plane.  This adds "explosiveness" to the "sneaky-fast" heater.  By "sneaky fast" we mean it looks 102 MPH but is actually 202 MPH.  

Like they say, with Taijuan standing out there next to Felix and Paxton and Rodney, Taijuan looks like the 9th grader playing with 6th graders.  You kinda feel the pause and silence when Walker's on the mound.

On the fastball as such, Dr. D will /cosign the "Men Among Boys" storyline.  Walker Seattle Mariner has a 2.81 lifetime ERA in the bigs, throwing really nothing he knows about, other than the wild fastball.

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Changeup 

There was no gun on the TV screen.  But Taijuan threw some sort of diving spikeball that the eye clocked at 89-90 MPH.  

"Changeup?"  That's as laughable a term as the "changeup" term for Felix' dry spitter.  For both men, the "changeup" is maybe one tick off his fastball and for both men, the pitch drops straight down.  Not sailing wide and softly dipping due to gravity.  

But at least Felix uses a circle-change type GRIP, which is more than we can say for Taijuan's pitch.  It's even held with a forkball grip.  Semantics, babe, you gotta love 'em.  So what's next?  Calling R.A. Dickey's knuckler a "changeup"?  

It used to be that you nominated a pitch not by the way the guy twirled and grabbed it in the glove pre-pitch, but according to its velocity and yonder deflection chart:

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Calling a pitch "something" based on --- > the flight of the ball?  Obviously passe.  Okay, Dr. D insists that we call James Paxton's hook a change, Hisashi Iwakuma's slider a "cambio" and, most importantly, Charlie Furbush's throwing motion a "flying suplex." 

We digress.  Here is Spectator's gorgeous "Enhanced GIF" showing Taijuan murdering Matt Kemp's soul with a spikeball.  That Spec and I both admired the same "tech rollout" with the same starry eyes?  You guess why.

Whatever the reason?  When Taijuan starts that spikeball above the knees, to drop below it, you are talking a 24-karat USDA certified wipeout pitch.  B'lee DAT.

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Usually, a 96 MPH fastball plus a 91 MPH spikeball isn't enough to disrupt timing and keep the batters in the yard.  But these are exactly the twin engines that Roger Clemens used to win Cy Youngs with the Blue Jays.  It's one spikeball more than Taijuan has had to run his 2.61 ERA so far.

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Slider and Curve

:: blinks ::

To the general surprise, he did throw a couple of neat little sliders.  Unfortunately, each time he started it outside the zone, so the batters held up naturally and easily.  By an incredible coincidence, Postgame Taijuan actually stated directly that "I need to start my slider in the zone."  Obviously Mariner players are beginning to learn something from Dr. Detecto et al.  This is pleasing.  The more they read Seattle Sports Insider, the more games they'll win, obviously.

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Taijuan threw two slow overhand curves that Dr. D noticed, both on first pitches.  He kept 'em nice and low, and the ump was quite happy to "job" him on both of them.

When you throw 102 MPH, a first-pitch yakker is a gimme called strike.  Provided you don't strike the ump out also, of course -- the ump is grinding his teeth back there, trying to see the fastball and get the first pitch right.  (Yes, according to Ron Luciano, it's really possible to throw a fastball so hard it "vanishes" for the ump.)

You could easily see the game in which, innings 4-7, Taijuan starts half the batters with a slow yakker and every blinkin' one of the pesky rodent batters then plummets into (A) a pitcher's count, 0-1, and (B) a confusion state, forever "in between" his heater and yakker. 

Since you bring it up, it's easier to visualize some baseball game in which Taijuan starts both his slider and curve in the zone to move out of it, along with the fastball/spikeball bread and butter.  If so, they simply change the rules and they're golden.

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Mound Presence

Taijuan's aggressiveness and poise, right now, far outstrip his actual throwing skills.  That also is pleasing.

Overall?  For two innings, the kid had visually moved forward several yards.  Versus the guy who threw for us last July.  There y'go amig-O, a 2.61 ERA work in progress.  

As a #1 starter for the 1981 Mariners, he'd be pretty white knuckle.  As a #5 starter behind a hide-the-women-and-children rotation, he's 99 kinds of dream come true.

BABVA,

Dr D