Last night’s Dodgers/Diamondbacks game was marked by inopportune walks by a reliever, costing his team the game.
But that reliever wasn’t Joe Kelly!
Nope, this time it was Diamondbacks closer Greg Holland walking four straight batters with two outs in the ninth to tie the affair before T.J. McFarland was brought in to walk in the game’s winning run.
Well before that, when the night was young and Arizona fans weren’t yet wondering why they like baseball, Joe Kelly did pitch, and he pitched pretty well.
So well, in fact, that his ERA is now under six, standing lean and tall at 5.97.
The outing, beyond hitting that milestone, offered a few more conventional Joe Kelly moments. He hit Jake Lamb with the second pitch he threw. He walked Jarrod Dyson. He painted the corner with a 100-mph fastball to set down Nick Ahmed on three pitches with two out and two on. He froze Alex Young (a pitcher, but you didn’t know that) with 98-mph cheese.
Kelly did work more than one inning, entering with two outs in the fifth, making it his second outing this year of more than one inning in which he didn’t allow any runs (early in the season, these multi-inning affairs were a big challenge for our guy).
All in all, another encouraging night from Kelly, who, since his bobblehead night, has a 1.23 ERA, eight strikeouts to only three walks, and plenty of 100-mph fastballs to his name.
