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Walker returns to Pittsburgh

By John Mehno

For the Mirror

PITTSBURGH – Neil Walker will find himself in familiar surroundings tonight, but in a completely different role.

He’ll make the early afternoon drive from his home in the North Hills to PNC Park. If there are any construction detours, it won’t be a worry. He knows the back roads, too.

He’ll greet familiar faces when he arrives at the ballpark, but he’ll veer to the left and into the visitors’ clubhouse with the New York Mets.

The Mets are in town to open a three-game series tonight at 7:05. They’ll be facing Jon Niese, the pitcher for whom Walker was traded last December.

With a .279 average and 13 home runs, Walker has been vital to the Mets’ success. He grew up rooting for the Pirates, then playing for them.

Tonight, he’ll be trying to beat them for the first time.

He’s established with the Mets now and long over what feelings he had about a trade that he expected.

“The real heavy emotions were the first three or four weeks,” he told Newsday’s Marc Carig in Miami on Sunday.

“I didn’t ever experience anger with anyone. A little bit slighted? Sure, but once I got through that, I was like, this is an unbelievable opportunity. I just wanted to make sure I was prepared to come here and help this team win.”

Walker’s departure came as he was one season from reaching free agency. Lukewarm talks on a contract extension didn’t get anywhere, and then were abandoned altogether.

“It’s hard to say I feel like I deserved the Andrew McCutchen treatment, because Andrew is a better player than I am,” Walker said. “I don’t feel disrespected, but I certainly felt like I wish we could have had a little bit more legitimate conversation when it was time.”

The Pirates weren’t really that interested in retaining Walker long-term. They’re opposed to giving multi-year contracts to players over 30 (Francisco Cervelli was an exception because he’s a catcher) and they believed they had second base adequately covered in both the short and long term.

It remains to be seen what Walker’s future is beyond this season. The Mets were interested in him to plug a hole at second base after postseason hero Daniel Murphy left as a free agent.

There’s little doubt Walker will get a rousing ovation from Pirates fans the first time he steps into the batters box tonight.

“Even if I was greeted with 25,000 boos or whatever, I still feel like I gave everything I had to give to the organization, to the city, to the team,” he said. “When you feel that way, you can live with whatever happens.”

Liriano’s struggles

Whatever is wrong with starter Francisco Liriano, his health isn’t an issue.

General manager Neal Huntington confirmed that Liriano’s ineffectiveness is not being caused by an injury.

“At this point in time, it’s just a struggle,” Huntington said. “Good major league pitchers go through it. We have complete confidence that between (pitching coach Ray Searage and bullpen coach Euclides Rojas), our catchers and our advance guys that we’ll get Francisco back to being the pitcher he’s been so frequently for us over the past handful of years.”

Taillon close?

Huntington said that prospect Jameson Taillon will make his next start for Class AAA Indianapolis as scheduled.

Taillon’s turn in the rotation comes up Wednesday.

Huntington did admit that Taillon could be close to getting his first major league assignment.

“We’re still refining some things,” Huntington said. “The pitch arsenal, the pitch use…but he is getting closer. He is well ahead of our internal projection of where we had him being in a position to help us at some time this season.

“He’s well ahead of that, but we’re still not at a point where we’re 100 percent comfortable that we’re going to drop him in our rotation ahead of somebody. But we are getting closer.”

In 10 starts with Indianapolis, Taillon is 4-2 with a 2.04 earned run average and a 0.81 WHIP. He has walked six and struck out 61 in 612/3 innings, allowing just two home runs.

Mehno can be reached at johnmehnocolumn@gmail.com

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