Pitcher Drew Walker helps Pitman move within one win of reaching section championship game
For much of his youth career, Pitman High baseball player Drew Walker thought of himself as a first baseman first and a pitcher second.
Last season as a junior, he played in more than 25 games but had just six pitching appearances. He was the fourth or fifth guy in a crowded field of pitchers that included Andrew Balentine, Brandon Leon and last year’s Bee Player of the Year, Mateo Garcia.
In his six appearances, he threw for six innings, gave up 10 earned runs, struck out eight batters and earned just one win.
Numbers like that will not get any pitcher on the mound often, especially when the top three arms in the rotation combined for 18 wins. He found the field as a position player, finishing third on the team in batting average (.400) and RBIs (20) and tied for second in doubles (10) as the team won 21 games and advanced to the second round of the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II playoffs.
Despite his success in the field, something always pulled Walker back to the mound.
“I just like being able to really impact my team, whether it’s throwing and getting outs or if that’s not working out, just bringing energy, bringing confidence to my team,” he said. “If a pitcher has a lot of confidence, and they bring a lot of energy, then the team’s gonna reflect that and they’re gonna be a confident team. They’re not only gonna play confident defense, they’re gonna put together confident at bats and they’re just gonna be more energized.”
Walker decided if he wanted to pitch as a senior, he would have to put in the work. He put in extra time on the mound and played a rigorous summer travel ball schedule with the NorCal Valley Baseball Program that included showcases where he was pitching against some of the best talent on the West Coast.
“I just got a lot of innings on the mound against good travel ball teams and I started feeling really confident with it,” he said. “I was getting a lot of outs and was just really being competitive on the mound. I came in this year thinking I can still do both but I was really excited to pitch and then now it’s just fun to do it.”
He has been dominant as a senior.
So far, Walker has appeared in 10 games as pitcher and is a perfect 9-0. His earned run average is under one (0.52) and he leads the Pride in strikeouts with 88. He keeps batters off balance with his fastball, changeup, slider and curveball and has allowed just four earned runs all season.
He has helped lead the Pride to the top seed in the Division II playoffs and picked up a shutout win with nine strikeouts in their playoff opener against Ceres.
“I’ve seen him work extremely hard,” said Pitman High coach Andy Walker, who is Drew’s dad. “At the end of the year, he was like, ‘I want to do this’ and so we worked for it all summer, all fall, all winter. Being that I live with him, I saw the countless hours that he put into his game. He works in silence when no one’s there. … He went from giving up 10 runs in six innings to he hasn’t even given up 10 runs all year this year.”
Like he has been all season, Walker was dominant in the Pride’s first Division II semifinal game against Rio Americano on Monday afternoon. In the opening matchup in a best-of-three game series, Pitman earned a 10-1 win and Walker pitched six innings, allowing one earned run, striking out eight and giving up just four hits.
The one run the Raiders scored was in the top of the fourth inning, but the Pride answered back with a seven-run bottom of the inning, breaking the game open.
Walker walked with the bases loaded to score Pitman’s first run and Alex Lopez gave the team its first lead with a single back up the middle. Dominic Damante, who finished with a game-high three RBIs, drove in a pair with a double.
“I have enough confidence to throw strikes and my team gets outs,” Drew Walker said. I do what I can do and they have produced at the plate. They’ve made plays for me. That’s where having a lot of close bonds (with) a lot of seniors comes in, because you know they’re going to make that play, you know that someone’s going to come in with a big at bat. They back me up really well.”
Walker and Balentine are smooth left-handed seniors who are a combined 15-0 this season. While Walker got the start in the series opener, it is likely Balentine will get the chance to close out the series Wednesday in Sacramento, possibly sending the Pride to their first baseball section title game since 2006.
“It’s not something you see every day,” Andy Walker said of having two left-handed pitchers. “To have those guys to be able to roll out there, it’s a good thing.”
Drew Walker is no stranger to pressure. On Friday nights in the fall, he started at quarterback on the football team.
He spent 10-plus weeks operating in big moments with defenders rushing at him with the goal of forcing him to make a mistake. In football, he had to be mentally strong enough to take a hit and bounce back up to lead his team the next play. While navigating the pocket seems vastly different than standing on the rubber, Walker feels the two are synonymous.
“It really translates pitch to pitch,” Drew Walker said. “If they hit you, that’s kind of like going down in football and then you gotta refresh and go get the next pitch now.”
Football was fun, but baseball will likely be his calling at the next level, though. Will he play first base or will he pitch?
“I put pitching over first base now.” he said with a smile.
This story was originally published May 16, 2023 at 11:30 AM.
