Orioles reliever Jamie Walker will have a magnetic resonance imaging on his ailing left elbow after the season, but he refuses to blame injuries for the most difficult year of his big league career.
"I have no excuses," Walker said. "It's just been a bad year for me. I'm hoping that there is nothing in [the elbow], and I'm just going to try to finish the year out and we'll go from there."
Walker pitched a scoreless inning last night, lowering his ERA to 6.25, more than three runs above his ERA last season, when he was the Orioles' most reliable reliever. Walker started the season with a career 3.84 ERA and hadn't had an ERA over 4.00 since 1998, when he appeared in just six games for the Kansas City Royals.
Perhaps most concerning, Walker, who had established himself as one of the better left-handed specialists in the game, has allowed lefties to hit .301 against him with seven home runs. He has surrendered a total of 12 home runs, three more than any other season in his big league career.
"Obviously, the home runs, they've hurt a lot, and my earned run average is probably the worst it has been in my career," said Walker, who will enter the last season of a three-year, $12 million deal he signed with the Orioles in November 2006. "I think I fell in a rut the first couple of months. It was miserable. I'm a prideful guy. I'm going to bust my [butt] this winter, and hopefully, I'll get that chance to redeem myself."
Walker missed nearly a month with inflammation in his left elbow. He acknowledges that his elbow has bothered him this season, but he stopped short of saying it has affected his performance.
"I felt more pain this year, but I am 37 years old," Walker said. "I know the difference between pain and being sore. But when you are this old and you throw for this long, you deal with it. You go on any pitcher this age and something is going to be wrong, probably. But I have no excuses."
Orioles manager Dave Trembley acknowledged that Walker's health and performance this season have been a "red flag."
"You go, 'Hey, is it my fault, did I use him too much, or is [he] just running out of gas?' " Trembley said. "Guys have bad years and come back and have better years. I think he would really benefit by an offseason of rest."
Guthrie scratched
Jeremy Guthrie won't start tomorrow night against the Minnesota Twins as planned.
