Taijuan Walker, last year’s $72 million Phillies free-agent disappointment, will start season on the 15-day IL

CLEARWATER, Fla. — It’s not official, but it’s inevitable: Walker’s out, Turnbull’s in.

Phillies starter Taijuan Walker, who has had a disastrous spring after a disappointing 2023 regular season, will begin the year on the 15-day injured list. He missed his bullpen session Saturday with discomfort in his right shoulder. Walker said Sunday that, after testing, he was diagnosed with an impingement, a pinching pain in his joint that he wants to be cautious with. He did not undergo any imaging, he said, and he received no shots.

This spring, Walker has a 15.43 ERA in two outings that lasted just 4⅔ innings. He has given up seven hits, four walks, and a team-worst three home runs. He didn’t blame his results on injury; he said he didn’t feel any discomfort until Saturday.

Walker said he will rest the injury and try to play catch again Wednesday. He can come off the IL on April 9, but that’s not realistic. He has thrown no more than 61 pitches this spring because he missed two weeks due to personal issues, and then a knee was sore. He said he will travel with the team when it breaks camp Monday and will stay with the club while he rests and rehabs. It sounds like he’ll be a spectator for a long time.

Phillies manager Rob Thomson said Walker will have to go through almost an entire reset. Including simulated work, he only thrown 10 innings this spring, less than half of what the Phillies require of their starters. Once he feels better, he will need two bullpen sessions and two live batting-practice sessions before his first game action, which will be no more than two innings. By the time he hits 20 innings, it might be May.

“We’re going to make sure we take care of him, because he’s a big — a huge — piece on this ballclub,” Thomson said.

That Thomson stressed Walker’s importance is notable since the Phillies did not use Walker in the playoffs last season, after which he tweeted, “Disrespect is at an all-time high #nextyear.”

The Phillies started Spencer Turnbull on Saturday against the Yankees in anticipation of Walker’s exclusion, and Turnbull will replace Walker in the rotation. Thomson said Turnbull will start Game 6 of the season. That will allow opening-day starter Zack Wheeler to pitch on his normal fifth day. It also will allow the Phillies to further stretch out Turnbull with a simulated game Friday so he’s able to last five innings or so against the Reds on April 3.

This is the third time in Walker’s career that a spring shoulder issue has affected the start of his season.

Walker said he last felt this way with the Mets in 2022. He left his first start of the season, in Philadelphia, coincidentally, with an injury that was diagnosed as right shoulder bursitis, which cost him just 18 days. Walker had knee surgery before the 2022 season. He battled knee issues this spring as well, and figures this might be an injury of compensation.

“I think it’s all connected,” Walker said. “You don’t use your lower half, then you use too much arm. Get into bad habits by doing that. Now the lower half feels good, but now I’m starting to feel the upper half.”

Walker also missed the chance to make the Mariners’ starting rotation as a rookie in 2014 with a right shoulder impingement in spring training.

Walker signed a four-year, $72 million free-agent contract before the 2023 season, but he pitched so poorly that the Phillies did not use him in the playoffs.

Perhaps since it’s the third time in 10 years he has faced early-season shoulder issues, Walker on Sunday seemed resigned to his fate and leery of repeating past mistakes. He has intimated several times that his inconsistent 2023 season, his first with the Phillies, was affected by unspecified maladies, and he left an April 26 start with right forearm tightness but did not miss a start. He was, however, horrible in that next start, and that’s the sort of thing he wants to avoid.

He admitted Sunday that, in 2023, his shoulder felt “the same way, just a little dead.”

He persevered.

“A lot of times last year I wasn’t at 100 percent,” he said. “That was a grind. It was a struggle to pitch like that. So this year, I want to be able to pitch at my best more times than not. If I have to take a little time in the beginning, then I have to do that.”

On the mound: In a 2-0 win, Aaron Nola gave up a one-out single and walk to start Sunday’s game against the Blue Jays, then retired 16 of the next 17 batters. He finished the spring 2-1 with a 3.79 ERA in 19 innings. Nola is scheduled to start the Phillies’ second game of the season against the Braves at 4:05 p.m. Saturday at Citizens Bank Park. Matt Strahm and Yunior Marte followed with 1⅓ perfect innings. Marte did not surrender a run in nine outings this spring.

At the plate: With Kyle Schwarber sidelined for a fifth game due to a stomach issue, Bryson Stott led off with a scrappy two-strike single, stole second on the first pitch to Trea Turner, then scored on Turner’s single. Bryce Harper moved Turner to second with a groundout to second, and Alec Bohm drove him in with a two-strike, two-out, opposite-field double. All this came against Blue Jays starter Chris Bassitt, who led the American League with 16 wins last season and, in the last five seasons, is 58-28, the third-highest win total in that span, with a 3.39 ERA, which ranks fourth among pitchers with 125 starts.

Roster moves: Utility man Kody Clemens was optioned to triple-A despite another strong spring: .325, three homers. ... The reassignment of relievers Andrew Bellatti and Jose Ruiz helped Connor Brogdon make the club despite having an inconsistent spring. Brogdon, 29, has a 4.15 ERA this spring, hitters have clipped him at a .294 rate, and his walks and hits per innings pitched (WHIP) is 1.85 after he surrendered two runs in one inning to the Yankees on Saturday. Thomson said Saturday that Brogdon’s changeup was an issue, but Brogdon is more concerned that with his velocity remains down a tick: Ideally, he sits at 96 mph, but he’s been around 93 mph most of the spring. Brogdon, a postseason hero in 2022, had velocity issues last spring and was sent to the minors for good after struggling for the first two months of 2023, posting a 4.03 ERA and a 1.448 WHIP. Thomson said Brogdon had a poor spring in 2022 but surprised the Phillies with a strong year, and the Phillies have seen flashes of the 2022 Brogdon this spring.

Quotable: The Phillies don’t have a designated closer, so, just days after the Shohei Ohtani gambling scandal broke, Strahm was asked which of the talented Phillies relievers he thought would finish 2024 with the most saves. He quipped: “I don’t think it’s a good week to bet in baseball.”

On deck: The Phillies finish their spring schedule at home at 12:05 p.m. Monday at BayCare Ballpark. RHP David Buchanan (0-0, 5.63) will start for the Phillies vs. Tampa Bay RHP Jacob Waguespack (1-0, 4.15).