Giants Talk: Why Ryan Walker has ‘no guarantees' for MLB return after demotion
On "Giants Talk," co-hosts Alex Pavlovic and Cole Kuiper break down San Francisco sending veteran reliever and former closer Ryan Walker to Triple-A.
Giants Talk: Why Ryan Walker has 'no guarantees' for MLB return after demotion originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Video Transcript
Ryan Walker was optioned on Sunday.
I don't think a huge surprise to anyone.
We had a lot of talk in the off-season about how Walker, I don't know, seemed like the de facto closer position, that he just had to get back to what a previous version of himself looked like.
and that just hasn't happened yet.
There's been a lot of folding in big moments.
even when he was moved out of the ninth, it still kept happening.
re- what do you think of the Ryan Walker to Triple-A move?
Well, the first thought I had is Ryan came up the same day as Patrick Bailey, and nobody really paid attention to that part of it.
But my main thing with Ryan is, like, w- he was the closest thing they had to a closer coming into the season, and I think we've been very adamant about this here, or at least I have been very adamant, that up until the last week, when he was not in the ninth inning, he generally has still been a very good big league reliever.
Mm-hmm.
And the problem is, I don't know what happened in the last week.
He gave up runs in four straight appearances, multiple runs in three of them, and he went from being a guy where you go, you know, probably miscast as your closer, but still really solid in the sixth or seventh and potentially a good piece in the eighth, to being a guy where you just, you don't know.
The question is, when does he come back and what happens here?
I mean, there's some things he needs to fix.
He needs to get some confidence back probably, and needs to It's so tricky with Ryan because it's, it's such a unique delivery, but, like, maybe needs to work on a third pitch or just something else to change it up.
Mm-hmm.
'Cause it, it, his two pitch mix, especially a lot of times when it becomes one that he can trust is, has become really difficult.
and I, I think the question we've gotten, and I got this from a few people in our DMs, was like, what's next for him?
you know, Spencer Bivens is still down there.
Tristan Beck is still down there.
So there are no guarantees, even as a guy who was a former closer and, and really had pitched like an all-star for a lot of his career that, like, go down there, you know, have six good outings, and come back.
Like, he needs to go figure some things out, and I think it just kind of, same with, with Bailey, they kind of reached the end of the line here and with where they're at as a team right now.
