Merrill Kelly Experiments with Arsenal in D-backs Loss to Angels

The veteran starter experimented with his pitches in a loss to the Angels.

Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Merrill Kelly throws to the Kansas City Royals in the first inning during a spring training game at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick on Feb. 28, 2025, in Scottsdale. / Rob Schumacher/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Arizona Diamondbacks starter Merrill Kelly had a mixed start against the Los Angeles Angels Monday afternoon. The D-backs' offense was solid early and there were some good relief appearances from key relievers. But a seven-run Angels ninth inning against D-backs' minor league pitchers led to an 11-5 loss.

Kelly had a difficult second inning in which he gave up four straight hits, including a single and three straight doubles. All were hit hard, despite not being center-cut pitches. There were sinkers, a cutter, and a slider, all on the very edges of the strike zone, but hit hard nonetheless.

The veteran had to be removed from the second inning with his pitch count climbing, but re-entered in the third. He gave up a sharp single up the middle but then got the next three batters to complete his outing. His final line was 2.2 innings, three earned runs on six hits. He didn't walk a batter, and struck out four, throwing 66 pitches, 42 for strikes.

Kelly was not overly concerned with the way the outing went. In fact he said he felt great about his stuff today. As is typical for a veteran spring outing, he said he was working on some things. "There's a lot of pitches that we throw in spring, a lot of situations, a lot of counts that we probably wouldn't go to in the regular season," Kelly said.

Kelly went on to give a more detailed explanation of how that works sometimes in spring games. "There's certain pitches that I threw today that in the regular season I'm not going to throw just because I threw two of them. I wanted to see a third one because I didn't like the first two, or if we're working on a certain pitch we're just going to go to it even if the situation might not call for it."

Kelly continued to work in the slider, throwing 16 of them, more than any other pitch. But he used his four-seamer, changeup, sinker, cutter, and curveball too. While Kelly's slider has been a good pitch for him this spring, he wants to make sure he's not getting too slider-happy going forward.

"I think I still need to focus on what makes me myself. As much as it has been good, I don't think it's a good enough pitch where if I had to throw it as many times as I did today that it works out well."

Corbin Carroll had a triple in the first inning, roping a ball down the right field line 114 MPH off the bat. He was driven in by Josh Naylor.

The starters batted around in a four-run third inning. Carroll had an RBI single, as did Jose Herrera, who had two hits on the day.

In the bullpen there were solid scoreless outings from A.J. Puk and Joe Mantiply. Shelby Miller threw two innings, retiring the side in order with two strikeouts in the fourth inning. He came back out to pitch the fifth and gave up a leadoff single, a stolen base, and then balked the runner to third.

That runner came home to score, but Miller struck out the last two hitters of the inning to give him four in total. Getting in the second inning is a significant box to check, and indicates the team is testing to see if he can give them any length out of the pen.

The D-backs have a complete off day on Tuesday, and resume Cactus League play on Wednesday against the Colorado Rockies. Jordan Montgomery will make his much-anticipated return to game play after pitching in a backfields simulation game his previous outing.