{"id":359546,"date":"2026-06-13T18:41:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T18:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/359546\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T18:41:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T18:41:20","slug":"giants-recall-former-closer-ryan-walker-in-move-to-shore-up-bullpen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/359546\/","title":{"rendered":"Giants recall former closer Ryan Walker in move to shore up bullpen"},"content":{"rendered":"

The San Francisco Giants<\/a> are bringing back former closer Ryan Walker<\/a> from Triple-A Sacramento, where he was optioned last month to work through his mechanics after struggling in the season\u2019s early going.<\/p>\n

Right-handed pitcher Carson Seymour was optioned to Sacramento as the corresponding roster move. Giants manager Tony Vitello also named Caleb Kilian as the team\u2019s closer, hoping to stabilize the role rather than continuing to rely on a by-committee approach. Kilian, who has made 28 appearances this season, owns a 3.34 ERA with four saves.<\/p>\n

Walker, 30, was sent down on May 10 after a particularly troubling stretch in which he allowed seven runs and blew two saves over four straight appearances. He said Friday afternoon that the demotion didn\u2019t really surprise him.<\/p>\n

Walker\u2019s issues this year fit in with a general struggle to get outs that started last season. He was dominant in the late innings in 2024, earning a share of the closer role (shared with Camilo Doval) into 2025, when he stopped missing bats. His strikeout rate has plummeted from 32.1% in 2024 to 19.2% this season before his demotion.<\/p>\n

Vitello said part of the calculus in promoting Walker was to get a fresh arm in for Seymour. Beyond that, Vitello said he felt Walker had successfully hit the reset button and made the necessary mechanical tweaks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA big thing for (Walker) is being able to come in and be the fireman in particular situations that might pop up, really anytime after the starter leaves the game,\u201d Vitello said. \u201cBut also, it could be a clean inning somewhere deeper into the game, or he can get his three outs and get us closer to a victory.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Giants sent Walker to work through mechanical fixes to his delivery. There appears to be some improvement. He has a 1.93 ERA over eight appearances (9\u2153 innings). Typically, Walker has been a one-inning guy, but the Giants used his time in Sacramento to get him stretched out to pitch multiple innings as a means of creating bullpen flexibility. He pitched two scoreless frames on June 5 and 1\u2154 scoreless the outing prior.<\/p>\n

The Giants could use a confident Walker, who said he hopes to eventually reclaim the closer role. A lockdown option in the ninth inning is something they\u2019ve missed dearly. The relief corps\u2019 8.74 ERA since the start of June is baseball\u2019s worst, as are their 6.69 walks per nine innings.<\/p>\n

Watching the bullpen collapse from afar over the last month wasn\u2019t fun for Walker. The right-hander was motivated to get back to the majors and contribute. But he first had to make sure he felt like himself, which he thinks has been the case for the past two weeks or so.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen the back-end guys have had to go a couple innings and I\u2019m like, \u2018Damn, I could be there to help, to make sure those guys don\u2019t have to do those two-inning stints,\u2019\u201d Walker said. \u201cI was just kind of eager to get back and play my part in the pen to just help the boys win again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Francisco Giants are bringing back former closer Ryan Walker from Triple-A Sacramento, where he was optioned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[129795,101,4820,103,102,104,106,105,127],"class_list":["post-359546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-ryan-walker","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}