Continuing Coverage of Joe Kelly, or Kelly’s Wild Night

Those who made it through yesterday’s 13-inning National League Championship Series opener were treated to the latest chapter in “The Legend of Carlos Beltran.” He drove in all three of the Cardinals’ runs, adding to his legacy as perhaps the best postseason hitter of all time. Hidden behind the story of Beltran’s postseason greatness was Joe Kelly’s shaky, yet effective start.

Prior to yesterday’s game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals, Dave Cameron and Jeff Sullivan spent about 2,000 words, four GIFs, and two tables covering who Kelly is, his most noteworthy skills, and why the Cardinals chose to start him in Game One of the NLCS. You can find those articles here and here. In short, it was determined that Kelly probably isn’t as good as his career 3.08 ERA, but may not be as bad as his 4.00 FIP either. Jeff offered Henderson Alvarez as a comparable player.

Before we dive into the meat and potatoes of why we’re spending more time covering Kelly, viewers of last night’s game may have noticed that he wears glasses on the mound, but not at the plate. This is counter intuitive, since hitting clearly requires better eye sight than pitching (I can personally attest to this, I wore contacts to hit but not to pitch). TBS’ Craig Sager got the skinny via Adam Wainwright:

Wainwright asked him, what are you doing, why do you do this? And he says it’s the craziest answer he ever heard. According to Kelly, he sees the ball too well when he wears glasses at the plate. He picks up the spin, he gets excited, he gets anxious, and he swings at everything. According to Kelly, it’s better if he doesn’t see the ball as well.

This is the kind of baseball lunacy typically associated with left-handed pitchers. Clearly, this is a unique man deserving of continuing coverage.

There was some controversy about Mike Matheny’s choice of Kelly over rookie sensation Shelby Miller, making this an interesting game for second guessers and armchair managers everywhere. By the numbers that count, Kelly had a strong outing. He allowed two runs over six innings, earning the quality start even if “quality” is not the first adjective that comes to mind. His stuff showed great life with a 96 mph sinker, sharp curveballs and sliders, and a sweet changeup that he used for a couple strikeouts.

Kelly’s start had blemishes too – namely wildness – and the Cardinals were fortunate to survive the outing. In the first, he got ahead of Hanley Ramirez only to drill him in the ribs. He later uncorked an ugly wild pitch that allowed base runners to advance. The wild night continued from there. Below is a scatter plot of his pitch locations from the catcher’s perspective.

That chart is a bit deceptive. Yes, the pitches are all over the place, including a few too many right down the middle. But it hides the sheer volume of bounced pitches. Kelly spent more time playing in the dirt than a five-year-old boy, bouncing 12 out of 95 pitches. Let’s turn to the images.

The Good (strikeouts from first inning)

Carl Crawford whiffing on a 0-2 curveball

Yasiel Puig swinging over a 2-2 curveball

The Bad