Red Sox prospect Brandon Walter looks to improve after rough outing in Triple-A debut with WooSox

WORCESTER — Brandon Walter walked into the WooSox dugout and slammed his glove in disgust.

The promising pitching prospect for the Red Sox made his Triple-A debut Thursday at Polar Park and it did not go as planned for the 25-year-old lefty. No worries, though, because these things happen in the game of baseball.

His final line did not indicate how well he pitched. There were some questionable calls behind home plate and four broken-bat hits. In the end, however, Walter had to deal with the loss. He worked only 1⅔ innings, allowed six runs on five hits, walked one, struck out two and hit a batter. He tossed 42 pitches (24 strikes).

“It was a combination of tighter zone, then a couple of unlucky breaks and it resulted in that,” said WooSox manager Chad Tracy. “I expect big things from him. It was just a little hiccup.”

Walter was promoted from Double-A Portland earlier in the week and there’s been a lot of attention on his early-season performances, especially his strikeout-to-walk ratio. He struck out 68 and walked only three batters in 50 innings of work for the Sea Dogs. Overall, he posted a 2-2 record with a 2.88 ERA.

“Just my confidence of throwing everything in the strike zone,” he said. “It’s weird because I think I got away from that tonight, nibbling a little bit. I think I’ve got a pretty good three-pitch mix (fastball, slider, changeup) and I’ve been doing a good job of getting ahead and hopefully that continues.”

Other than that he was pumped about his promotion.

“It was a cool experience,” Walter said after the game. “The stadium’s cool. It was exciting to get to pitch in front of all these new faces here and teammates and trying to earn their respect.”

Walter cruised in the first inning, retiring the side in order on only 12 pitches.

“I just wanted to establish the strike zone early, which I was able to do in that first inning,” he said. “I was able to get the fastball in the zone and was able to put them away with the off-speed stuff.”

The second inning wasn’t as efficient.

“It was a tight zone,” he said. “I didn’t get a few pitches that I thought I should have had. Also had some soft contact that didn’t go my way. It was a learning experience, because I need to be better at managing through all that.”

A lot has been made of Walter’s ability to keep the number of walks to basically a minimum, so it was a bit odd when he walked only the fifth batter he faced during his Triple-A debut. Track Man technology had it as a strike on the called ball four.

“Actually two pitches during that at-bat were in the zone, including that last one that was called a ball,” he said. “We get the data and we’ll check it. Maybe it was in the zone, I don’t know, but it was definitely close.”

After the game, plenty of Walter’s teammates agreed the pitcher was on the receiving end of a few tough calls.

“Walter’s a future big leaguer, the ump squeezed him,” WooSox’ Ryan Fitzgerald said as he walked out of the clubhouse.

Despite all his success this season, he did admit he was a bit nervous coming into his start.

“When you’re pitching with a new team, at a new level you want to do so much to impress everybody when you really don’t need to do that,” Walter said. “I think that was just me trying to nibble the strike zone more than I wanted to.”

All season he’s been confident throwing to the middle of the zone and he felt he got away from that Thursday night. He was attempting to paint the corners, but admitted he needs to attack the zone and challenge the batters.

After the game, it was evident Walter already put the start behind him and was already focused on his next one, which is a strong indication of his maturity on and off the mound.

“Everything I’ve heard about him, and I don’t know him that well, but everybody has said he’s really mature,” Tracy said. “Even when we took him out he waited in the dugout to give (reliever Brian) Keller a high-5 when he came out, so that speaks a lot to his (character).”

Walter is banking on his next start being a quality one.

—Contact Joe McDonald at JMcDonald2@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoeyMacHockey.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Red Sox prospect Brandon Walter looks to improve after rough outing in Triple-A debut with WooSox