WooSox starter Brandon Walter on his first outing of the season: 'I feel good physically'
WooSox starter Brandon Walter made his 2023 season debut Saturday, earning the start against the Syracuse Mets at Polar Park. This is his first start in the minors since landing on the injured list with a neck injury.
Walter only lasted 3 2/3 innings, surrendering seven hits, five earned runs, walked two, while striking out one. The 26-year-old gave up a solo homer to the Mets No.2 hitter Brett Baty.
“The line doesn’t look great, I got off my game a little bit. My reputation throughout my career has been pounding the strike zone, working good off-speed stuff in the zone. I wasn’t really able to do that today,” said Walter to reporters, including Beyond the Monster following the game.
While the box score wasn’t pretty for Walter, WooSox manager Chad Tracy found positives from his left-hander’s start.
“He was alright, the last couple (runs) were inherited runs. We had to get him out of there with a couple of guys on. He was up to his count. We are still appropriately building these guys up, he got to his count, three and change and it was time to get him out.
“I thought he did a pretty good job attacking the zone, he used his stuff and sometimes that’s just the way it goes. We’ll keep getting him built up, I thought he threw the ball ok,” added Tracy.
Walter told reporters he feels healthy but ultimately Saturday afternoon’s start didn’t go his way.
“Once the season starts it’s definitely different from the spring. In the spring I felt good, I was building up, the biggest thing there is building the workload and getting your body ready to take on 75 to 100 pitches. Yeah I feel good physically,” said Walter to Beyond the Monster.
Prior to his injured list stint, Walter was pitching at an elite level for the WooSox, posting posting a 2.88 ERA, 0.78 WHIP, 68 strikeouts and just three walks in nine starts (50 innings) at Double-A Portland.
WooSox pitching coach said before the game that the coaching staff will be looking to see how Walter commanded the strike zone and if he looks like he did pre-injury.
“His season got cut short last year with the neck injury, we want to see if he can regain the way he was before the injury. If we can get a solid five innings and command the zone like he’s capable of doing… we’ll be looking to see if his pitches resemble what they were before the injury, the moving patterns and the quality,” said Abbott.
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