SCOTTSDALE — When the pandemic shut the sports world down in 2020, Ryan Walker didn’t have much hope of ever reaching the big leagues. He was a 31st-round pick who had not played above Single-A, and while he had pitched well in his first two professional seasons, the fastball that topped out at 93 mph didn’t exactly scream “future closer.”
As he contemplated his future plans, Walker, who lives in the Phoenix area, met a local locksmith and struck up a conversation while he got new keys for his truck. Mendel Beck soon became his boss, and he told the young pitcher to order a kit off Amazon and show up a few days later for work. When Walker did so, he found that he was essentially thrown into the fire.
The business was busy, and Beck would show him a new skill once and then send him out on jobs. In an odd way, Walker thinks that helped him ultimately reach his goals as a reliever.
“A lot of it (as a locksmith) was figuring it out on your own, which I think it also helped in baseball, too,” Walker said on Thursday’s “Giants Talk” podcast. “You’re out there on the mound, you’re alone, and if things go sideways you’ve got to figure it out on your own.”
Walker proved to be a quick study as a locksmith, and years later, the same was true when the Giants threw him into the ninth inning.
When Camilo Doval’s struggles during the 2024 season hit such an inflection point that the Giants sent him to Triple-A, Walker was the easy choice to take over temporarily. Six weeks later, as the season came to a close, there was no doubt about who would head into 2025 with that title. Walker pitched so well down the stretch that there was no closer controversy this spring, even as Doval showed his old form. Manager Bob Melvin has said repeatedly since the end of last season that Walker will get the save opportunities.
Walker finished his second MLB season with a 1.91 ERA and 2.52 FIP. He struck out 99 batters, the most by a Giants reliever since Robb Nen got 110 in 1998. Despite finishing second in the NL in appearances — to teammate Tyler Rogers — Walker got stronger as the season went on, posting a 1.21 ERA in the second half, which included a scoreless August. He got his first save on August 10, and from that point on he had a 0.92 ERA, with 10 saves in 10 chances and 28 strikeouts in 19 2/3 innings.
Walker didn’t just take over the role of pitching the ninth. For nearly two months, he was as good as any closer in the game.
Walker’s sinker averaged 94.6 mph in April and was right around 95.5 mph the next three months, but in August and September it ticked up to 96.4 mph. The two games when he threw hardest in 2024 came on September 18 and 22.
“I felt like I was able to use that extra adrenaline and use it the right way,” he said of closing. “It felt like a debut all over again, except this time I could control it better. In your debut you’re a little shaky and you don’t know where the ball is going to go, but I was able to use it to my advantage, so maybe that was a little part of it.”
Overall, Walker’s sinker ranked fifth in the game by Baseball Savant’s leveraged run value, which assigns a value to every pitch. His slider also ranked fifth, and he finished in the 98th percentile in hard-hit percentage, 96th percentile in expected ERA, and 94th percentile in expected batting average and strikeout percentage.
It was such a dominant season that, as the Giants started planning for 2025, there was only one decision to be made for the ninth. The organization spent months working on Doval’s entrance video and light show, but Walker kept it simple after getting the role. He would jog in to Tyler Braden’s “Neon Grave” as Oracle Park went dark, and as he prepares for his first full season as a closer, he said he hopes the plan is to again keep it simple with his entrance.
“The spotlight probably isn’t for me — we’re already in the spotlight, I probably don’t need an extra one,” he said, smiling. “The rest of it is really cool to me. Turning off the lights and doing whatever they want to do with them, minus the spotlight, is great. It gets the fans going, too.”
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