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Phillies

There Were “We Want Turnbull” Chants at Citizens Bank Park

Kevin Kinkead

By Kevin Kinkead

Published:

Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports

The Phillies lost 5-4 in extras to the Cardinals on Sunday Night Baseball, and after Taijuan Walker gave up his second two-run home run, there was this:

Walker went five innings, giving up four runs on five hits while conceding two homers and striking out five. The balls that did come off the bat had quite a bit of velocity, for instance, the three batters in the first inning crushing balls at 103, 103, and 108 MPH.

Ant noted that it wasn’t the entire ballpark partaking in the “we want Turnbull” chant, but loud enough to hear it on the broadcast. It came from the press box side of CBP, which is why the scribes picked up on it. It wasn’t overwhelming and it didn’t carry for some extended period of time.

Nonetheless, the Walker thing seems to be the main topic of Phillie fan ire. He had a string of good starts in May, giving up nine earned runs over four appearances. Then he got wacked for nine hits in San Francisco before conceding St. Louis an early lead on Sunday night. His ERA is up to 5.73.

Spencer Turnbull, meantime, came out of the rotation in early May. Over the course of six starts in April, he threw 32.1 innings and compiled a 1.67 ERA while allowing just six earned runs. He struck out 36, walked 10, and allowed just 17 hits during that time frame. He’s since made seven appearances out of the bullpen amounting to nine innings of work.

It would seem like a no-brainer move to put Turnbull back in the rotation and demote Walker, who is in year two of a four-year deal paying him $18 million per. Note that Turnbull has thrown 44.1 innings this year and has eclipsed 56 just once in his career, which was back in 2019, when he finished with a 4.61 ERA in 30 starts. It’s a simple move on the surface, but you get into the unknown pretty quickly.

Meantime, Coggin is tracking the all-important “Velasquez” statistic:

Kevin Kinkead
Kevin Kinkead

Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com

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