Phillies’ Taijuan Walker working to get back to the dominant ‘six-week stretch’ he had last season

Phillies starter Taijuan Walker, who is on the 15-day injured list with right shoulder soreness, simulated a live batting practice on Tuesday afternoon, throwing 33 pitches over two innings, with batters standing in. He said he felt “really good” physically, but was especially encouraged by his velocity.

Walker was throwing 90 mph, without doing long toss or his standard pregame routine. He’s optimistic that the velocity will continue to tick up from there.

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“I sat 90 the whole time, which, for not being able to long toss, play catch at 60 feet really, basically, I thought that was solid,” Walker said. “But it was a different 90. It wasn’t soft. I felt like the ball was jumping out of my hand. Better life and better carry to it.

“For what it was, and with the circumstances of [Tuesday], I was extremely happy with it.”

The next step will be a live batting practice — outside — in Washington on Saturday. After that, it’s likely that he’ll go on a rehab assignment. He isn’t sure how many starts he’ll need; it will depend on his pitch count in those outings. He is eligible to come off the injured list on Monday.

This has been a tough few weeks for Walker, whose spring was interrupted three times because of knee and shoulder injuries, and a personal matter that delayed his start to camp. When he was at his best last season — from May 21 to June 29 — he posted a 1.69 ERA over eight starts with 38 strikeouts in 48 innings.

He wants to get back to that version of himself, and believes this time off can help.

“The stretch I had last year, the six-week stretch, I want to do that all year this year,” Walker said.

He added: “I’m good now [mentally]. I don’t like missing starts. I love pitching, I love competing with the guys, and if I feel like I can [start], I want to be able to do it. I feel like I can do it, probably not going to be pretty all the time, but I feel like I can still do it.

“But I think it’s a lot better for me mentally and physically to be at my best every fifth day, instead of having to grind through starts. So, just taking a couple of weeks off, you know, sitting back and realizing, hey, it’s a long season. The norm of throwing 250 innings is kind of over. So it’s how many of my best starts can I give the team?”

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Reliever Orion Kerkering (right forearm strain) threw one no-hit inning in an intrasquad game in Clearwater, Fla., on Tuesday. He threw 15 pitches (10 strikes) and his fastball hit 96 mph. The Phillies are going to be cautious with him.

“It’s another power arm coming out of your bullpen,” manager Rob Thomson said. “We just want to make sure he’s good, again, because he’s young, he’s talented, and you know, he hasn’t spent much time here. So the adrenaline rush is going to impact him more so than with an experienced guy. So we just want to make sure he’s good.”

Kerkering will pitch again on Friday.

Thomson said right-hander Ricardo Pinto will get at least three days off after his four-inning save on Tuesday night. When asked if Pinto, who was added to the active roster on Tuesday, will stick around, Thomson said he could.

“Well, he pitched well enough to,” Thomson said Wednesday. “It’s a valuable piece, especially right now, you know? Because we kind of beat up our bullpen the first couple of days and then [Luis] Ortiz went down early in his outing. So that made it a little bit worse. So what he did last night was just save everybody.”

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