Diamondbacks' Merrill Kelly taking aim at cramping issue after another premature exit
Merrill Kelly spent seven innings Thursday night tracking towards perhaps the best start of his career. He tied a career-high with 12 strikeouts, using his changeup to devastating effectiveness. And unlike the previous five double-digit strikeout games in his career, he did not allow a run. To boot, he had only thrown 86 pitches through those seven innings.
All of which only amplified the frustration when, after a warmup pitch before the eighth inning, Kelly had to walk off the mound with trainer Max Esposito — the second time in four starts that Kelly has exited with a cramp in his right hamstring.
“Somebody tears their elbow or their shoulder and they have to come out of the game for that, that's obviously understandable,” Kelly said. “But the fact that I'm sitting here for the second time in a couple games coming out of a game because of a cramp, especially when we're in a tight race, playing a team that is also in a tight race, it's frustrating for me for sure.”
In his postgame press conference, Kelly said he felt fine. According to manager Torey Lovullo, he remains on track to make his next start Tuesday against the Dodgers.
But in a tight Wild Card race, every inning matters. Not only did Kelly previously exit with cramps after six innings and 85 pitches against the Dodgers on Aug. 9, but he was also removed from his next start after 92 pitches in part because Lovullo was trying to avoid a repeat of the issue. The Diamondbacks ultimately lost both of those games despite strong starts from Kelly.
On Thursday, they nearly lost again because Kelly had to exit early. That’s not something he or the team wants to repeat.
Kelly has gone into a deep dive on hydration and cramping before. When he pitched in South Korea, he had a period where he was consistently having to leave games early due to cramps everywhere from his hamstring to forearm to hand.
“There's a couple different avenues,” Kelly said. “I think most people either believe in the nervous system side of it or the hydration side of it. It's weird that it's popped up now. I had some trouble with it in 2019 a little bit but I really haven't had issues with it since then.”
Now, he’s diving into that research again. On Friday, he is planning to meet with team nutritionist Joe Scire about the recurring cramps.
“Dive into some electrolyte stuff and we'll just kinda get back to the drawing board and see if we can figure something out,” Kelly said.
Earlier this season, Kelly missed a month with a blood clot in his right leg and in 2020, he had a blood clot in his shoulder. Both he and the team, though, have said that they do not believe the cramping issues and blood clot issues are related.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Merrill Kelly taking aim at cramping issue
