We’ve seen a lot of Joe Kelly’s over the years. We’ve seen Can’t-Find-The-Plate Joe Kelly. We’ve seen Unhittable Joe Kelly. We’ve seen Kick-Your-Ass Joe Kelly.
Last night, we saw all three.
We’ve been waiting for this Dodgers-Astros game for a while. The first matchup since everything blew up this offseason with the Astros’ sign-stealing. We knew things might be contentious. We knew Joe Kelly might make things contentious.
No, Joe Kelly was not on the 2017 Dodgers. But he’s on the Dodgers now, and in Joe Kelly World, it doesn’t seem to be so much about personal affronts as about affronts to his teammates. The Tyler Austin fight, if you’ll recall, was not because Tyler Austin did anything to Joe Kelly. It was because Tyler Austin spiked Brock Holt. Also, with our hero’s occasional wildness, there’s always the chance that even if he doesn’t want to throw at guys, he’ll throw at guys. It’s like a dragon who thinks it’s fun to blow fire on his enemies but also occasionally just accidentally burps up some fire. Whether the fire’s intentional or not, fire’s always a possibility. And it was never more a possibility than when Kelly entered in the bottom of the sixth last night to face the heart of the Astros order with the Dodgers leading 5-2.
On the first pitch (98 mph fastball), Kelly got José Altuve to float a lazy out to shallow left. So far, so good. Good decision by Altuve to get the at-bat over with. Great decision really, as we soon learned with Alex Bregman.
Against Bregman, Kelly appeared to be legitimately wild, failing to find the strike zone on a fastball and two curves. Then…it escalated:
Now, a few thoughts:
1. Was this supposed to go two feet behind Bregman’s head? Can’t know for sure. Kelly was authentically wild to begin with.
2. That’s not to say Kelly wasn’t trying to throw it in Bregman’s general vicinity. Just saying he wasn’t necessarily head-hunting, and when you’ve got a three-foot margin of error and you aim for the ribs, sometimes the ball elevates a bit.
3. Joe Kelly hasn’t hit anyone in the head with a fastball yet, to my knowledge, so let’s just keep hoping he doesn’t accidentally kill someone so we can keep enjoying this.
4. I think we can agree, with confidence, that Joe Kelly was not trying to kill Alex Bregman last night. Just trying to put a little scare in him. Also, he was tired. You see that yawn at the end of the video? Dude hasn’t gotten used to the travel schedule again yet.
I don’t have a great Twitter video of what happened next, but Jomboy did a nice breakdown of the whole affair that’s especially good in its clips of Alex Bregman looking terrified while Joe Kelly repeatedly makes pickoff attempts before pitching to Michael Brantley.
I do have a great Twitter video of what happened next next, which is that after Kelly got Michael Brantley to nearly hit into a double play to first, someone affiliated with the Houston Astros yelled, “Just get on the mound, little fucker!” as Kelly walked back to the rubber. Please admire national treasure Joe Davis’s “ooh” while watching:
The “get on the mound” comment seemed to be in response to Kelly looking back at Brantley, who’d stepped on Kelly’s foot when Kelly slightly missed the bag (looked entirely unintentional, but how was Joe Kelly to know that?).
So, to recap (and we need to recap before getting to what happened next):
- Joe Kelly terrorized Alex Bregman
- Joe Kelly got incidentally spiked by Michael Brantley
- Someone from the Astros’ dugout called Joe Kelly a “little fucker”
- Yuli Gurriel came to the plate with two outs and a runner on first.
The Gurriel at-bat went off without incident. Four-pitch walk. But between pitches one and two, Davis did say on the broadcast that “Joe Kelly is the most common answer from his teammates to the question: Which teammate would you most want to ride shotgun with you through the toughest part of town?” And while, yes, I’m sure someone would call this stupid bravado, if sports are supposed to be the healthy way for us to channel the same instincts that lead us to go to war against each other, there’s something noble about being the guy your teammates most trust to have your back.
Then, Carlos Correa came to the plate.
Before Correa batted, it’s worth mentioning that Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior came out to talk to Kelly. Prior, if you remember, pitched for the Cubs from 2002 to 2006, during which time Dusty Baker—the current Astros manager—had him average over 113 pitches per game in 2003 at the age of 22, and throw more than 120 pitches in an outing nine separate times. This will become relevant later when Dusty Baker talks about how Joe Kelly could’ve ended Alex Bregman’s career (disclaimer here: I don’t have anything personal against Dusty Baker, and know he’s dealt with a lot of unfair shit, but he also hasn’t dealt with enough fair shit for destroying Mark Prior and helping destroy Kerry Wood).
First pitch to Correa?
Missed.
Whether he missed the plate or missed Correa is up to interpretation, but it does seem that Kelly, at this point, was going into curveball-only mode like he did Saturday, unable to throw his fastball where he wanted to throw it.
Second pitch?
Another curveball inside. Two balls, no strikes.
Third pitch?
Nasty curve. Swing and a miss.
Fourth pitch:
Curveball in the zone. Foul ball. Even count.
Fifth pitch:
Curveball in the zone. Lined foul. Two-two count, still.
Sixth pitch:
Mayhem.
The strikeout.
The mocking.
The shit-talking.
This was the moment in which we achieved peak Joe Kelly. This was the moment in which all three Joe Kelly’s came together into one greater whole. This was the moment in which Joe Kelly ascended to the top of our national consciousness, at least as measured by Twitter trends, where Joe Kelly remained the number one topic for a few hours, and “Joe Kelley” and “joe jelly” made the top 25 at times.
Loyal Joe Kelly fans will remember that he used the Greg Maddux defense in 2018 after the Tyler Austin incident: Joe Kelly is not Greg Maddux, and should not be expected to hit his spots. Last night, he offered as evidence that window he broke this offseason trying to work out a changeup:
Makes sense to me.
Dusty Baker’s rebuttal? Pour more fuel on the raging fire of how cool Joe Kelly is by sharing exactly what he said to Carlos Correa:
Amazing.
To wrap things up, yes, we have a shirt now to commemorate the evening:
We’ve reached out to some contacts to try to get approval from Joe Kelly to sell the shirt and send five dollars per shirt sold to Mission 108, the charity the Joe Kelly Fight Club shirts from Sully’s Brand supported back in 2018. We’ll keep you posted. Current estimated sales total is three t-shirts (this blog has a really small following, guys).
To further wrap things up, no, I wouldn’t guess Kelly sees the mound again tonight in Houston. Better to lay low for a while. As for suspension talk: Yeah, he might get suspended. Which will be awesome if it happens because no Astros were suspended for starting this whole thing by stealing signs. Rob Manfred has built himself quite the pickle.
So, yet again, we are reminded, and the Astros are taught once more:
Joe Kelly always wins in the end.
