After Taijuan Walker failed to get out of the first inning one night in September, Mariners pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre Jr. remembers looking down the dugout three or four innings later. There was Walker, his head down.
“Most guys will go in the clubhouse after a bad one, but he sat on the bench,” Stottlemyre said over the phone on Friday. “It was painful to watch.”
But it also might have been a turning point. Walker approached Stottlemyre later that night and told him he was ready to work – ready to make whatever changes Stottlemyre thought were necessary.