As he made the five-hour drive, word filtered back to him that something had happened with Riley. He was in Virginia on a hunting trip with a few friends, but he decided to head home. The morning of Riley’s death, Walston woke up feeling unsettled. But, as he reeled emotionally in the wake of an unthinkable loss, he learned more than that. That Walston got through it with a shiny 3.76 ERA across two levels of A-ball suggests that rite of passage schooled him on pitching. It’s a crucible for any young player, their first real exposure to the grind of the minors. Last year was Walston’s first full professional season. With their help, he slowly pulled himself back to a healthier place. He confided in pitching coaches and worked frequently with Arizona’s mental skills staff. Unable to calm his roiling mind, the left-hander resolved to not follow his friend into an inescapable spiral. It damaged his outlook on life.” His brother, Garrett says, “has not been the same since.”īut damaged does not mean destroyed, and Walston can sit in this chair on this day and discuss his trauma because of a crucial choice he made in the weeks following that terrible February day. Riley’s death “damaged everything” about Walston, says his older brother Garrett. More than a year has passed and Walston is still battling those disturbing thoughts. “It pretty much cut me in half,” he says. Awake or slumbering, Walston was wracked by guilt - who would have been in a better position to pick up on Riley’s intentions than his best friend? - and was unable to stop himself from thinking about Riley’s death. Every night was sleepless, his insomnia interrupted only occasionally by a few minutes of rest. Every morning greeted him with a bout of nausea. He stopped eating, at one point carrying only 170 pounds on his 6-foot-5 frame. He lost the motivation to play baseball or even leave the house. The loss has scarred the Diamondbacks pitcher in ways he’s only just now beginning to understand. Just more than a year ago, on February 7 of last year in their coastal North Carolina hometown of Wilmington, Walston’s closet friend since birth died by suicide.

The tattoo Blake Walston wears to honor his deceased friend, Riley Estes.

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