Joe Kelly on back-to-back days? Twice in the span of a week??
Clearly, the Dodgers are playing to win, and win they did this afternoon, with Joe Kelly shutting up a whole lot of NL West fans who got tricked last night by the nasty, misleading demon statistic that is ERA.
It started with a strikeout, as is customary. Was Heliot Ramos chirping last night from second base? Unclear. Honestly, it looked pretty friendly to me. Either way, he sure wasn’t chirping today as he walked back to the bench.
After the Ramos strikeout, Joe Kelly walked someone—Matt Chapman, I now recall—on a billion pitches. Fun little battle between the mustache men. It’s good to mix a walk in here and there. It keeps the hitters guessing.
Following the walk, Patrick Bailey hit a ground ball single, and the deja vu began. You see, during his time in Chicago, Joe Kelly allowed a lot of ground ball singles. It was kind of his thing over there. He induced a lot of ground balls, and White Sox infielders didn’t exactly field them, and the result was baserunners. This is how it goes on the South Side. This is part of how they lose. This is also how it went last night. Last night, the ground ball gremlin struck again. Was Bailey repeating history?? Suddenly, the situation was fraught. Runners on first and second? One out? The Giants were trying to rally.
What did Joe Kelly do?
He struck out the two best hitters batting sixth and seventh in today’s San Francisco lineup.
Down went David Villar.
Down went Thairo Estrada.
Up went the pride of hundreds of millions of North Americans.
Takeaways:
- Joe Kelly threw a lot of offspeed stuff, but he still hit 99. I wonder if this was a little bit like a starter changing things up the second time through the order. He was facing a lot of the same Giants he faced last night. An alternative theory is that the offspeed was too sharp to throw anything else. He was painting with that slider.
- We still haven’t seen Joe Kelly throw three days in a row, but the Dodgers do fly to Houston tonight. Alex Bregman better make sure to wear his darker underwear.
