SAN DIEGO —
Monday delivered a night of large league debuts for the Arizona Diamondbacks — and a first for Major League Baseball. Merrill Kelly made his first-ever begin and Jon Duplantier picked up the store inside the D-backs’ 10-three win over the Padres at Petco Park. Since the store rule became created in 1969, no teammates had ever both made their Major League debuts on the equal night with one incomes a win and the other a keep. So let’s begin with the starter.
Kelly, a 30-year-vintage proper-hander who turned into decided on using the Rays in the 2010 Draft, spent the beyond four years playing for the SK Wyverns in the Korean Baseball Organization. The D-backs in December signed him to a -yr contract with a couple of membership alternatives, and he have become the crew’s No. 5 starter. So with his wife, Bre, and a number of friends from Phoenix sitting in the stands, he took the mound Monday seeking to assist the D-backs to snap a -recreation dropping streak.
“I want I may want to say I didn’t have loads of nerves, however I definitely did,” Kelly stated. “Just that first game — I know it’s amplified as it’s the massive leagues, but that first game of the season, first day trip, I suppose it had a little extra nerves than typical. I suppose these days was even extra than that. I took a minute before I threw the first pitch and form of took inside the stadium, took inside the surroundings, just so I could have that reminiscence earlier than I stepped on the rubber. Once I were given going, it was good.” That he changed into. Kelly carried a shutout into the sixth before the Padres were able to break via for 3 runs. By that point, it rarely seemed to depend — the D-backs were already up nine-zero. Adjusting to baseball in the U.S. Again has been a assignment for Kelly. The balls are slightly specific than they may be in Korea, the stadiums are bigger, and the amount of scouting information is a long way more abundant. “It’s genuinely thorough,” Kelly said. “I’m nonetheless getting used to it all. Over in Korea, we had analytics but not to the quantity we do here. I’m trying to nevertheless sense out what information I assume I need, what I don’t assume I need. Our team does an incredible job of giving us any sort of records we may want to likely want. It’s been extraordinary.”
Duplantier was a starter inside the Minor Leagues, but the 24-year-vintage proper-hander, ranked as the D-backs 2nd-best prospect by means of MLB Pipeline, changed into brought to the massive leagues earlier inside the day to offer a clean arm inside the bullpen. With Kelly achieved after six, D-backs supervisor Torey Lovullo decided it turned into time for Duplantier, whose dad and mom had flown in from Houston for the sport, to get his flip.
“As soon as I walked through [bullpen] the door, hit the pad and took about three steps, I was like, ‘OK, I’m now not going to fall; I’m now not going to journey,’” Duplantier said. “Because I were given massive ft and occasionally, the turf monster will get me. But it didn’t get me these days. Got about 3 steps and just couldn’t stop searching up. Just taking it all in like anyone had endorsed me to do. It turned into just sheer pleasure. I felt like a child.” Maybe so, however he pitched like a grown guy, permitting just one hit even as hanging out two over the very last three innings to select up the keep. “I should thank all of the guys right here, the staff right here, quite an awful lot everyone that’s had their hand on my back ever for the reason that I’ve been drafted,” stated Duplantier who become decided on within the 1/3 spherical in 2016. “There has been not anything however positivity, not however encouragement. Nothing however building up.”
