Arlington native Ryan Walker locks down closing role with Giants

On a good day, when the traffic isn’t snarled in that stretch from Everett to downtown Seattle, a person could drive from Arlington to the SoDo district in just over an hour.

But really, how many good traffic days are there on Interstate 5, even on a summer Sunday morning?

Still, the chance to see Ryan Walker pitch for the San Francisco Giants at T-Mobile Park against the team he grew up rooting for as a kid in Arlington, well, that was worth a Sunday and testing the traffic gods.

With a former teacher/coach setting up a group outing to Seattle to see a hometown boy making good in Major League Baseball, more than 200 folks from the small town in northern Snohomish County purchased tickets as a group to come to Sunday’s series finale.

“They blocked off like 200 seats and it sold out right away,” Walker said before Saturday’s game. “I’m sure there are other people on top of that coming, family and friends, it’ll be a good time.”

Roughly five hours later, after tallying his third save of the season, Walker, 28, knew that he wasn’t going to pitch in front of all those folks from his hometown.

Having thrown two scoreless innings Friday, striking out five of the six batters he faced and then working a scoreless ninth inning with three more strikeouts Saturday, there was no chance of him throwing Sunday.

“He volunteered [Saturday], which allowed us to do things a little bit differently earlier in the game,” Giants manager Bob Melvin said of the back-to-back appearances.

Besides, Melvin made it very clear following the Giants’ 4-3 win Saturday, Walker has earned the prime relief role for the team.

“He is the closer right now,” Melvin said bluntly.

In 65 appearances, the second most in MLB, Walker has posted an 8-3 record with a 1.98 ERA. In 68 1/3 innings pitched, he’s struck out 89 batters with just 15 walks. Opponents are batting just .188 against him this season.

It’s an outstanding season for any reliever. But even more considering he’s never been considered an elite prospect.

After a standout career at Arlington High School as an All-Wesco performer, Wallker signed with Washington State as a pitcher. He was a four-year letter winner with the Cougs with his 87 career appearances ranking second most in school history. He posted a 16-13 record with 11 saves over the four seasons.

With the MLB draft still at 40 rounds in 2018, Walker was taken by the Giants in the 31st round and signed for a bonus of $2,500.

“I obviously didn’t start off with the most promising spot in 2018, but it just goes to show it doesn’t matter,” he said. “You just go out and do your thing and pitch. That’s all you can do and that’s what I did. It’s cool to see how the years progressed, moving up each year was always a plus. There were always the years where it’s like, all right, if I don’t go up next year or whatever, I’m going to start rethinking my career. But every year, I just kept moving up. I just stayed true to who I was as a pitcher and it worked out.”

There were some tough moments along the way.

When the minor-league season was canceled in 2020, Walker had to make ends meet while not playing. So he tried driving Lyft in the Spokane area for a few months. It was not an enjoyable experience. Looking for new opportunities, he took a job with a locksmith company.

“If you locked your keys in the car, locked your keys in your house, re-key houses and businesses, I learned how to do it,” he said. “It’s way better pay than Lyft or anything else I was going to do. It was actually fun. We had to survive somehow. I definitely didn’t have the funds to go for a whole year without working, so it was a good time. It’s a great skill to learn. My boss was great. I started off just doing car lockouts, and then he’d show me how to do more.”

Walker opened doors of more than a few cars that were still running and even a few with babies inside of them.

“I saw a lot,” he said with a smile. “I have some stories.”

Now he’s locking up, er locking down, hitters and innings for the Giants in the late innings.

Like his minor-league career, success at the MLB level took time. His unique mechanics with a crossfire throwing style across has made his high-90s fastball and slider tough to pick up. It’s an uncomfortable at-bat for both righties and lefties for different reasons.

“I believe I can make a mistake but sometimes the deception makes it hard for them to see it,” he said.

But it is also the confidence and understanding that his pitches work at the MLB level.

“It’s staying confident with my pitches in zone,” he said. “No matter who’s at the plate, not being nervous about throwing a heart in the zone. Obviously, nobody wants to throw it middle-middle, but I think that’s the biggest thing for me. That’s kind of what I struggled with my whole career. Once I changed that thinking last year, it seemed to be the biggest change for me.

“Obviously, I’m throwing a little harder than I was a couple years ago. That helps along with staying ahead in the count. That’s one of the biggest things we pride ourselves on, is first-pitch strikes. Once you can establish that, you can even play with your stuff a little bit more.”