Joe Kelly made his season debut last night in a courageous return from offseason surgery to remove a cyst from a nerve in his shoulder.
It didn’t go great.
He pitched fine—his velocity was there, his balls were moving, he didn’t walk anybody, etc.
But he did allow four earned runs while getting only two outs.
- José Iglesias blooped in a single.
- Taylor Ward grounded into what would have been a fielder’s choice if not a double play, but Iglesias had been running on the pitch, so one out, runner on second.
- Jose Rojas doubled on a ball hit to A.J. Pollock’s feet. Would’ve been a tough play for Pollock. Only legitimately hard-hit ball.
- Drew Butera lined out.
- David Fletcher blooped a spinny little thing over first base that turned into a double.
- Shohei Ohtani, with two strikes on him, took an offspeed pitch six inches off the plate and yanked it into the gap for a double. It didn’t perfectly split the outfielders, but it was in a somewhat rare spot where that kind of contact isn’t a flyout.
- Mike Trout hit a ball at A.J. Pollock’s feet that again would have been a tough play but this time made Pollock come up lame, turning it into a triple for Joe Kelly’s equal (if we’re being generous to one of them, and I think you know who I’m being generous to here).
Not the results you want, but also a 3.08 FIP outing in a game that Anaheim was already probably going to win, so nothing to be too concerned over. Will inflate the ERA for a bit, but it’ll fade. Nobody allows a .714 BABIP in real life.
Also, we got this pregame gem regarding the surgery:
So I’d say it was a good day.
