Walker relishes first-time All-Star experience

Much of the country will remember Taijuan Walker's first career All-Star appearance for the Mike Zunino homer that marred it. He can live with that. In addition to being a first-time All-Star himself, Zunino is a former longtime teammate of Walker’s. There are worse home runs that Walker could have allowed.

In truth, Walker will remember his time in Denver as much more -- as the culmination of his first nine years as a big leaguer, as a reminder of all the challenges he faced along the way, as a marker of how far he’s come in his career.

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“It means a lot, honestly,” Walker said. “My ninth year, which is crazy. I feel like I’ve been around forever. But it’s just special for me.”

In describing why the All-Star Game was so important to him, Walker ticked through the long list of events that brought him to this point. Once one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball, Walker struggled with consistency early in his career, before tearing the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow early in 2018. He missed nearly all of two seasons recovering and, despite a strong showing in the pandemic-shortened season last summer, Walker received only one Major League contract offer last winter.

It was from the Mets, who had whiffed on Trevor Bauer, passed on Jake Odorizzi and otherwise waited until February to make Walker their top free-agent rotation target. Even they didn’t know how dynamic Walker would prove to be during his first half in Flushing, going 7-3 with a 2.50 ERA and 89 strikeouts over 90 innings. Although those numbers were not enough to place Walker among the National League’s initial wave of All-Stars, he became one of several replacements for players -- such as teammate Jacob deGrom -- who elected not to participate.

With that, Walker was off to Denver, where he watched Pete Alonso win the Home Run Derby from a unique vantage point on the field. Later Monday, he enjoyed dinner with his family -- including his mother, wife, children and siblings -- at STK Denver, a short walk from Coors Field. On Tuesday morning, Walker donned a suit jacket as he walked the red carpet with his wife. Finally, he climbed atop the mound for his first career All-Star appearance in front of a boisterous crowd at the ballpark in the NL's 5-2 loss to the AL.

Walker opened his inning with a pair of long at-bats, which ended in a José Ramírez flyout and a Whit Merrifield strikeout -- the latter eliciting loud cheers from his family members in attendance. That brought up Zunino, who had served as Walker’s batterymate from 2012-16 in both the Minor and Major Leagues with Seattle. When Zunino stepped to the plate with two outs, Walker flashed his glove in greeting. Then he elevated a 96 mph fastball, which his former teammate took the other way for an opposite-field homer.

“I was just letting it rip as hard as I could,” Walker told SNY afterward. “I was honestly trying to strike everybody out. I got one, so I was happy about that.”

Shortly thereafter, the week’s All-Star festivities officially came to a close for Walker, who will remain an integral part of the Mets’ plans as they look to maintain their first-place standing throughout the second half of the season.

Now an All-Star for posterity, the veteran Walker is no longer an overlooked pitcher.

“I feel like I’m in the right spot,” he said. “I like the Mets. The Mets were actually one of my top five teams that I wanted to go to in the offseason. So for them to give me a chance and believe in me, I’m glad I can give back to them and show that they made a good choice.”