Kelly stops overthinking and 'lets it fly' in bounceback performance

PHOENIX -- Merrill Kelly stood in front of his locker at Tropicana Field after his start last Sunday and said he was running out of words to describe how badly he has pitched this season.

Some time between then and his start on Saturday against the Brewers, the Diamondbacks right-hander decided he'd had enough.

He'd had enough of overthinking his mechanics. Enough of trying to be too fine with his pitches. Of worrying about the results.

Before he took the mound against the Brewers, only one thing was left on his mind: Competing.

"I just wanted to come out aggressive today, just kind of let it fly, and just kind of let the chips fall where they may," Kelly said. "Not try to be too fine or too precise, just be aggressive."

Kelly did just that, and the formula -- at least for one night -- proved to be effective, as he held the Brewers to a pair of runs over five innings in the Diamondbacks’ 4-3 win on Saturday night at Chase Field to even their weekend series at a game apiece.

Kelly is not a pitcher who relies on velocity, but he mixes his pitches and has a feel for pitching. Sometimes overthinking about other stuff can get in the way of what he knows he needs to do to be successful.

"Just trust that I've been doing this long enough that I remember how to pitch, and remember that I can read swings and different approaches," Kelly said.

Kelly had some early offense to work with thanks to catcher Adrian Del Castillo.

Brewers starter Brandon Woodruff retired the first two hitters in the first inning before issuing a walk to Corbin Carroll and allowing a single to Gabriel Moreno.

That brought Del Castillo to the plate and he smacked a Woodruff offering deep into the right-field bleachers to give Arizona a 3-0 lead.

Kelly did allow eight hits and a pair of walks, but managed to work his way out of jams as the Brewers left eight runners on during his five innings of work.

The only damage Milwaukee could muster off Kelly was a two-run homer by Christian Yelich in the fifth.

It was quite a contrast to his outing against the Rays, when he allowed five runs over six innings to balloon his ERA to 5.84.

"[That start] was probably kind of just the straw that broke the camel's back," Kelly said. "Because what I was doing wasn't working, and I felt like what I was doing was the opposite of competing and being aggressive and being on the attack. Clearly, it wasn't working, and I just got to the point, like I said, that in my mind it couldn't get any worse."

The proliferation of video and data can be tremendously helpful for a pitcher. It can also get to the point where the constant search for small adjustments takes away from getting the job done.

"We are here every day for a long time," Kelly said. "And I think sometimes we can get caught up trying to fix or tweak things here and there, and I think that was starting to leak into the games. I think, obviously, with the lack of results, that could lead into a little bit of loss of confidence. And then obviously when you lose your confidence, you lose the attack. And I just really wanted to go into the day and be aggressive."

During his between-starts bullpen session, Kelly saw himself again trying to be too fine, and that was it for him.

"It was kind of a look in the mirror type moment," Kelly said. "There's two directions you can go, right? You can either continue to try to do what you're doing and have the results that you are getting, or you can try to do something else and try to change it around."