Kelly finding groove, Marte extending his key D-backs' 10th win in 11 games

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Diamondbacks continued their dominance over the Giants on Monday afternoon as they won, 6-2, at Oracle Park behind a solid outing from Merrill Kelly and another productive day at the plate for Ketel Marte.

The win was the 10th in the past 11 games for the Diamondbacks, with all 11 of those games against either the Rockies or Giants. Arizona is now 4-0 against San Francisco.

Here are a couple of things to know about the day:

Kelly has found his stride
Kelly is on a roll after missing Spring Training with a nerve issue in his back. The right-hander struggled with his command and feel when he first returned to action this year, but he has won his past four starts and has pitched to a 2.17 ERA over those games.

"Merrill was fantastic, and despite maybe a hiccup or two, he was just dominant," Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said. "He went out there and just threw the ball where he wanted, mixed it up, changed speeds, front to back, side to side."

In other words, a vintage Merrill Kelly performance.

In an era where big velocity is king, Kelly has found success with a low 90s fastball because he's able to throw a multitude of pitches and command them.

It was that command and feel that were missing early in the season, when he was still essentially going through Spring Training while pitching in regular-season games.

"That was probably, in my opinion, the sharpest it's been so far," Kelly said. "Saw some good life on the fastball. The misses that I have when I'm going bad, when things aren't right, I didn't see as many of those today. As far as shapes and location, everything was probably the sharpest."

That's no small statement considering the fact that two starts ago, he tossed the first complete game of his career, holding the Rockies to just one run at Coors Field.

"I don't think the curveball was as good [in Colorado] as it was today," Kelly said. "We're finally starting to see some better action out of the cutter. It's not backing up as much. There were still a couple that weren't great today, but overall the way it was feeling coming out of my hand, I would say it was [better]."

Marte remains on fire
Marte had a slow start to the season when you look at his numbers, but he also hit into a tremendous amount of bad luck when you look at the number of hard-hit balls that went for outs.

Teammates and Lovullo continued to encourage Marte during that stretch, insisting to him that things would turn around and even out.

It looks like they finally are doing just that.

On Monday, Marte went 4-for-5 with three RBIs and extended his hitting streak to nine games. In those games, he is hitting .568 (21-for-37).

"He's becoming himself, right?" Kelly said of Marte. "I think everybody in this clubhouse, everybody who's watched him for however many years now, knew he wasn't going to hit .205 all year. I saw a stat that he was second in the league in outs above 100 mph off the bat, and it's only a matter of time until those are dropping, and I think that's what you're seeing."

Marte delivered the game-tying RBI in the fifth inning to open a three-run rally. He then gave the Diamondbacks plenty of cushion in the sixth with a two-run single to push the lead to 6-2.