LSU pitcher Eric Walker happy to be back in the picture

By Ron Higgins

Look closely at the 2018 LSU baseball team picture.

You won’t find sophomore pitcher Eric Walker, one of the heroes of the Tigers’ 2017 College World Series squad that lost in the finals to Florida.

“I didn’t expect to be in it, so I was in the training room rehabbing when the coaches came in and said they were taking the team picture,” Walker said. “I was in shorts, so I was like `Y’all go ahead.’”

Since Walker missed all of last season as a redshirt rehabbing from Tommy John surgery after tearing the ulnar collateral ligament of his right elbow during the ’17 CWS, there was enough underlying personal emptiness to deem himself unworthy of being in the team photo.

It’s why Friday on LSU’s media day that also marked the opening of practice for the 2019 Tigers who are ranked nationally No. 1 or No. 2 in all five preseason polls, Walker savored every moment.

“It feels good just to put on the game uni and lace ’em up,” said Walker, smoothing the front of his yellow No. 10 Tigers’ jersey. “I know it sounds like a cliché’, but it puts a smile on my face to be back out here and be part of the team.

“I missed the simple things. I wouldn’t wish on anyone to sit out a whole year. It’s been too long.”

Walker the frosh phenom

Two years ago at the Tigers’ media day, then-true freshman Walker was already earning praise from veteran teammates despite not throwing his first college game pitch.

"Walker is one of the best pitchability guys I've ever seen as a freshman," then-junior starting pitcher Alex Lange said. "He's got stuff that resembles a guy who's been in college two or three years.”

LSU coach Paul Mainieri raved about Walker’s calm under fire which he developed as a three-year starting quarterback for Arlington's Martin High in the highest classification (Class 6A) of Texas high school football. Walker threw for 5,205 career yards with 41 TDs and was 27-5 as a high school pitcher.

Walker said thrived in competitive situations, and then proved it when he emerged as LSU’s No. 3 starter. His pitch command and his unflappable, deliberate manner on the mound produced an 8-2 record and a boatload of first-team freshman All-American honors.

When the Tigers hit the postseason, Walker jacked it up notch.

He was 2-1 with a 1.02 ERA in three postseason starts, including a one-run, eight-strikeout performance in the SEC tourney championship game win over Arkansas and throwing eight shutout innings in LSU’s NCAA Regional title clincher against Rice.

“At the end of the year, I felt Eric Walker was pitching better than (veteran staff aces) Alex Lange and Jared Poche,” Mainieri said.

But in the second inning of LSU’s second game in the CWS against Oregon State, Walker sustained the injury that was eventually diagnosed as an elbow ligament tear.

The stunned Tigers got rocked 13-1 by the No. 1 Beavers but fought their way out of the losers’ bracket. LSU beat OSU twice 3-1 and 6-1 before losing two straight to Florida 4-3 and 6-1 in the national title finals best two-of-three series.

In the end, LSU, without Walker, came up a starting pitching arm short of battling the Gators on even terms.

“The hardest was right after I got hurt and sitting in Omaha not knowing how bad I was hurt,” Walker recalled. “I felt I had let the team down. I had to wait until we got back to Baton Rouge to see a doctor and get an MRI. Once I had the surgery, I was able to attack rehab.”

Mention the ’17 CWS finals to Mainieri and it’s hard for him forget what could have been.

“I don’t want to diminish what Florida did because it earned it,” Mainieri said. “But I often think of how the Florida series would have been different if Eric had been available to start game one.

“It just felt like we were the better team. If we would have had all of our guns blazing, it could have been a little bit different. But it’s the nature of sports that you have to deal with reality.”

Rehab road

For Walker, the inconvenient truth was Tommy John surgery followed by 16 months of rehabilitation under the watchful and committed eyes Tigers’ baseball trainer Cory Couture and strength coach Travis Roy.

It was an unfamiliar world for Walker. The longest he had had ever been sidelined as a high school quarterback was five weeks in his junior season with a broken fibula only to return in week six for a playoff game.

Amazingly, maybe to outsiders but not to his LSU teammates and coaches, he never flinched mentally and physically during rehab. He tackled it with verve.

Also, Walker never quit being a supportive teammate when the 2018 39-27 Tigers had too many injuries and inconsistencies. The season ended with LSU being crushed at the Oregon State regional by the eventual national champs who outscored the Tigers by a combined 26-1 in a pair of wins.

“There was no point during the (rehab) process where I got down,” Walker said. “But there was a lot I had to do to get back. It was not easy physically and mentally.”

Walker’s work ethic and positive attitude didn’t go unnoticed around the LSU clubhouse, especially by his roommate Josh Smith.

Smith, the Tigers’ starting shortstop who played in just six games last season because of a nagging back injury, admired Walker’s sticktoitiveness.

“He got injured at the worst part of the (2017) year,” Smith said. “He was a vital part of that team. But after he got hurt, he put his head down and went to work. That’s one thing about him that everybody on this team loves.”

Tigers’ junior starting pitcher Zack Hess, who has already been designated by Mainieri as LSU’s game one starter this season in every weekend series, said he doesn’t know if he could have handled Walker’s untimely injury as well as Walker did.

“I tip my cap to Eric,” Hess said. “Every single day, he attacked his rehab with purpose. He’s the consummate teammate. He’s a competitor and just goes about his business and works. I can’t wait to see that dude back on the mound.”

Neither can Tigers’ pitching coach Alan Dunn, who has been dazzled by Walker’s control and command of pitches from the very first time he scouted him.

“He had one of the best rehab programs I’ve seen for someone coming off Tommy John surgery,” Dunn said. “When he started throwing, he looked like he hadn’t missed a beat. His arm action was easy. He showed his command right away. He didn’t have setbacks.”

Walker approached his rehab in a cerebral manner.

“There were guys I reached out who had Tommy John (surgery) like (then-LSU teammate) Nick Bush and a couple of my brother’s friends,” Walker said. “Just relate to guys who had been through the surgery, how they came back and then mold a process for me.

“I’d never been through this before, so it just opened me to new boundaries. In terms of baseball, (sitting out) allowed me to analyze the game a little more, fine tune what I do.”

The next step

Mainieri said Friday that Walker is his Sunday (or No. 3) starter, meaning he’ll make his debut against Air Force on Feb. 17 as the third game of the season-opening series.

Walker said he and the coaches were surprised during fall practice how quick his command of pitches returned. On Monday, he’s scheduled to throw live.

“I don’t know if there will be a radar gun up,” Walker said. “In the fall, I told Coach (Mainieri) `You can use the radar gun but keep it to yourself, I don’t want to know.’

“I feel healthy, I feel great. In this process you just keep telling yourself God has a plan and you just follow that. Whatever He has in store for me, I’m going to take it in stride and accept it.”

So, Eric, do you think if you hadn’t gotten hurt at the ’17 CWS that the Tigers would have beaten Florida and won the national title?

“I wish that would have been true, wish we could have proved it,” Walker said. “But you can’t go back. We’ll do our best to make that a reality this year.”