Merrill

Kelly

Even though the Diamondbacks were 5-5 in his starts, Kelly entered tonight with a flawless 5-0 record. He matched his season high with eight strikeouts, but he gave up eight hits, three of which went for extra bases, to conclude the regular season 5-1 with a 4.03 ERA. There’s still a chance that he’ll start a postseason game next week, but it’s smaller now than it was a few hours ago. Regardless, the D-backs will almost certainly exercise his $7 million option to keep him around in 2025.

Kelly was able to complete five shutout innings before being pulled from the outing. The 35-year-old has a good chance to return for his next start, but it’s something managers will have to keep an eye on for that final turn through the rotation.

Kelly has been dealing with cramping, and it’s possible the 35-year-old had that issue pop up again. There should be a further update on his exit before the end of Saturday’s game. It’s a shame he had to leave early regardless, but Kelly was having one of his best starts of the year with five shutout innings, six strikeouts and only two hits allowed.

Kelly didn’t look bothered by his hamstring at all, which is good. So is allowing just one run over six innings. What’s not good is having your offense score only two runs for you, and your bullpen blowing the lead you left with an inning later. Still, a very solid start for Kelly where he allows just two hits and strikes out five against two walks. It lowers his ERA to 4.00, and he’ll look to lower it some more against the Brewers over the weekend.

The Diamondbacks could push him to Tuesday if he’s still dealing with any issues at all, but Monday is the expectation.

We were hoping that was all it was. He should be ready to face Rockies next week in Coors Field. Kelly was charged with three runs in four-plus innings today against the Rangers.

Kelly has had cramping issues on occasion, and it looked like that might have been the problem here. He allowed two runs over the first four innings before exiting with a man on first and none out in the fifth.

After struggling to keep the ball in the park against the Dodgers in his last start, Kelly was very effective during Thursday’s start, as he didn’t allow a homer or a walk in his seven frames. The right-hander only allowed a two-run single in the fourth, and outside of that dealt with little trouble against the San Francisco lineup. The outing lowers his ERA to 4.08 on the year, and he’ll try and repeat the outing — and hope for some run support — against the Rangers on Wednesday.

Kelly got off to as bad of a start as you can have, as he gave up back-to-back-to-back homers to Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman to lead off the game. He settled down after that — comparatively, anyway — but damage done. Kelly pitched well so-so in his six innings against the Red Sox on Sunday, and hasn’t been great since returning from the IL. He’ll try and get things going against the Giants on Thursday.

The right-hander struck out five and walked three on the day. While Kelly did allow seven hits, only two of them did real damage, home runs to Triston Casas and Rafael Devers. Despite trailing 4-0 at one point, the Diamondbacks’ offense rallied back to get Kelly a win. He hasn’t been crisp in his return from the IL, allowing 12 earned runs in 16 innings, and had just an 18 percent whiff rate and 21 percent CSW on the day. He’ll now carry a 3.98 ERA into a rough stretch that has him facing the Dodgers, Giants, and Rangers. He’s not a must-hold in 12-team formats right now.