I haven’t seen the full context from Dave Roberts on last night’s bullpen strategy, but my guess is that the Dodgers only wanted to use Brasier, Henriquez, Hudson, and Joe Kelly around Ben Casparius, and that when Casparius’s pitch count hit 85 and he got in a little trouble in the sixth, it led Roberts to turn to Joe Kelly a little earlier than planned.
The upside here is that we saw our guy pitch across multiple innings for the first time in a while. And boy oh boy, did he look good doing it. Hardly 24 hours removed from clinching his eighth career division title, Joe Kelly geared up for October with fire and magic.
There are still haters out there—plenty of haters, including those who tried to take an innocuous report of an old White Sox locker room rift and turn it into a Joe Kelly smear campaign—but they will be silenced soon enough. By force. The force of watching Joe Kelly throw 100-mph lasers on the edge of the plate before sending hitters somersaulting over their front legs with changeups.
Joe Kelly rules.
The haters eat stools.
October is just three days away.
