Spring Training Gameday Thread, #6: 2/28 vs. Indians

This is Merrill Kelly’s first appearance on North American soil since August 2014, when he pitched six innings as a member of the Triple-A Durham Bulls. Since then he has been pitching abroad, mostly for the SK Wyverns in the Korean baseball league. He has been durable and effective there, making 30+ starts each of the last three seasons, with an overall ERA of 3.80. However, we need to see how those skills translate back to major-league hitters, and this afternoon will be the start of that process. Interesting that it’s an all-Kelly battery today, with Merrill Kelly throwing to Carson Kelly. I wonder how often that has happened? I’ll have to look into that before it occurs in the regular season.

Otherwise, looks a fairly light line-up for the Diamondbacks, except for Steven Souza and Wilmer Flores - the latter seems to have been playing a lot with the B-squad, though I think it’s just a case of figuring out playing time rather than to any nefarious end. Though as Jack mentioned in the comments earlier today, maybe the team is still looking at external candidates for center. If that comes to pass, then Ketel Marte moves back to the infield, and things there become considerably more... squishy. We’ll see what happens. This game is a webcast, available through dbacks.com, so at least you won’t have to be refreshing Gameday and trying to figure out of those three strikes were really just three strikes...