Kelly silences Rangers’ bats as D-backs even WS
-
Jesse Rogers, ESPN Staff Writer
ARLINGTON, Texas — Pitching in front of his grandmother for the first time in the big leagues, and just five years removed from a stint playing in South Korea, Arizona Diamondbacks starter Merrill Kelly produced the outing of his life, helping shut down the Texas Rangers in a 9-1 win in Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday night.
Kelly, 35, threw seven innings, giving up a run on three hits without issuing a walk. He struck out nine, looking as dominant on his final pitch — a beautiful moving sinker to freeze Rangers catcher Jonah Heim for strike three — as he did on the first pitch of the night.
“I could use every adjective to describe his outing,” teammate Evan Longoria said. “He’s been that for us all year.”
But Kelly was even better Saturday, allowing the Diamondbacks to even the World Series at 1-1. Game 3 is Monday in Phoenix.
“I think there’s a little bit of an evolution, a little bit of maturity that continues to show up with him in every outing,” teammate Zac Gallen said. “He takes things personally upon himself to get better every single start. He’s aware. He’s present. And he’s getting better and better with every start.”
Kelly has pitched well all postseason, allowing exactly three hits in each of his four starts. According to ESPN Stats & Information, he is the first pitcher in major league history to go at least five innings and allow no more than three hits in four straight outings within a single postseason.
He said he has focused on trying to take things “one pitch at a time” after being unhappy with his two National League Championship Series starts, when he totaled six walks against the Philadelphia Phillies.
“My focus since then was just purely pitch execution, trying to take one pitch at a time — almost the feel of ‘this is the biggest pitch of the game,'” Kelly said. “And then once that pitch is done, have the same mindset going forward as far as the next pitch.”
It worked to near perfection Saturday as Kelly used a five-pitch mix — half were cutters and changeups — to keep the dangerous Rangers off balance. He became the fifth pitcher in World Series history to go at least seven innings while allowing three or fewer baserunners in a road game.
A hostile crowd and a potent opposing offense didn’t faze him.
“He put the ball where he wanted it,” Rangers designated hitter Mitch Garver said. “He had a game plan, he executed it, and we didn’t do our half.”
Kelly’s lone blemish came against Garver, who homered in the fifth to cut the Diamondbacks’ lead to 2-1, but even that sinker was well placed, moving in on Garver as he got the barrel around on it. It was the last time the Rangers got near home plate.
Diamondbacks pitching strategist Dan Haren was watching from inside the clubhouse.
“He was moving the ball around as good as I’ve ever seen him today,” Haren said. “The amount of times he was hitting corners on both sides, with different pitch types, was just amazing.”
Kelly was particularly good at being in “attack mode” when the Rangers were patient and at hitting corners when they were swinging, according to Haren. He “read” the Rangers seemingly as well as anyone this postseason.
“When Merrill established being in the zone early in the count, I think that really opened things up for him,” Haren said. “He was putting the batters on their heels.”
Kelly was aided by a potent offense. Designated hitter Tommy Pham had a four-hit night, catcher Gabriel Moreno belted his fourth home run of the playoffs, and second baseman Ketel Marte extended his postseason hitting streak to a record 18 games. Longoria did his part, driving in a World Series run for the first time in 5,479 days (2008) and laying down a sacrifice bunt, just the second of his career.
“We did it in a way that was very reflective of the group that we are,” Longoria said. “It wasn’t with the long ball. Just consistently putting pressure on the opposing pitchers. You can feel the positivity on our side building when we do get our guys who can run on base. It amplifies the pressure on the pitcher.
“There’s quite a few people that haven’t watched our brand of baseball all year, but that’s how we win games. I hope that was a good introduction.”
Closer Paul Sewald, watching from the clubhouse and then the bullpen, added: “If you had to face our lineup, you’d just be so annoyed.”
It’s undoubtedly how the Rangers hitters felt about Kelly, who reminisced about his time in Korea, where he worked to improve his game in order to come back to pitch in the big leagues. He spent four seasons overseas after being drafted but never making it to the majors as a farmhand with the Tampa Bay Rays. He said those days stuck with him.
“I definitely had visions and images about me sitting on this podium, for sure,” Kelly said. “The big league games over there, for the time difference, are pretty much in the morning, pretty much right when I’m waking up. So that was kind of my routine. I’d wake up, make my coffee and check on big league baseball.”
Little did he know, he would eventually make it to the biggest stage in the game. And with family and friends in attendance Saturday, including his grandmother, whom he hadn’t seen since 2011.
“I feel like just life gets in the way,” he said. “This baseball thing takes up a lot of our time.”
Asked how he has been shaped by his experiences, Kelly’s answer might be the reason he pitched so well in Game 2.
“At this point in my career, nothing is going to shock me,” Kelly said. “I think going over to Korea as a 26-year-old is way scarier than pitching in the big leagues or even in the World Series, to be honest with you.”
SUNRISE, Fla. — Auston Matthews hadn’t scored against Florida in more than a year. He ended the drought — and might have also saved Toronto’s season.
Matthews got his first goal of the series to break a scoreless tie in the third period, Joseph Woll stopped 22 shots and the Toronto Maple Leafs kept their season alive by beating the Florida Panthers 2-0 in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinal series Friday night.
“Just a gutsy, gutsy win,” Matthews said.
Game 7 is Sunday night in Toronto. The winner will face Carolina in the East final.
“We played a simple game tonight,” Leafs coach Craig Berube said.
Simple, but effective. Toronto blocked 31 shots, plus killed off all four Florida power plays.
Max Pacioretty added an insurance goal for the Maple Leafs, who improved to 4-2 when facing elimination since the start of the 2023 playoffs.
Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 15 shots for the Panthers, the defending Stanley Cup champions who oddly are only 8-7 in potential closeout games over the past three postseasons.
“You win or you learn,” Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov said. “Tonight, we learned.”
Florida coach Paul Maurice is 5-0 in Game 7s, including the final game of last season’s Stanley Cup Final. The Panthers are 3-1 all time in the ultimate game of a series — 2-0 on the road — while the Maple Leafs have lost each of their past six Game 7s. Of those, four were against Boston and now-Panthers forward Brad Marchand.
“We’re not going to show any video of those Game 7s,” Maurice said. “We’ll look at our game tonight and see where we can get better.”
It was the 68th game of this season’s playoffs — and only the second that was 0-0 after 40 minutes. The other was Wednesday night, when Edmonton eliminated Vegas with a 1-0 victory in overtime in Game 5 of that Western Conference semifinal series.
Toronto had five goals in Game 1, four more in Game 2 and had three by the early goings of the second period of Game 3. Add it up, and that was 12 in basically the first seven periods of the series.
From there, Toronto got basically nothing — until Matthews broke through.
The Toronto captain was 0-for-31 on shots against Florida this season, including the regular season. Bobrovsky had stopped 85 of the last 86 shot attempts he had seen in the series. And the Maple Leafs hadn’t had the lead in basically the equivalent of 3½ games — 216 minutes, 30 seconds, to be precise.
But when a pass got away from Florida’s Aaron Ekblad, Matthews had a slight opening — and that was all he needed. A low shot skittered along the ice and beat Bobrovsky for a 1-0 lead with 13:40 left.
“It’s a big win, from top to bottom,” Matthews said. “We earned that.”
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway