SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- The Diamondbacks will have to wait until Monday to find out the results of the MRI taken of Merrill Kelly's back.
The right-hander was scratched from his live batting practice session Saturday after feeling some discomfort in his left-mid back area and he underwent an MRI Sunday. The imaging taken had not been read by the end of the Diamondbacks' 10-9 loss to the Angels on Sunday at Salt River Fields.
Kelly was re-signed by the Diamondbacks in December to a two-year, $40 million deal after being dealt to the Rangers at the Trade Deadline last season. Early in camp, Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo named Kelly the team's Opening Day starter.
“I don't have a concern level [yet],” Kelly said on Saturday. “Because we don't know, at the end of the day, what it is. I mean, the last week and a half, I've been throwing, been doing everything normal, and it didn't kind of rear its head until today. So I'm going to take that as a good thing, the fact that I've felt it for that long but I've still been able to do everything.”
The club hopes to have more clarity Monday, but should it be something that causes Kelly to miss time, Arizona does have some starting pitching depth thanks to the recent re-signing of Zac Gallen.
Gallen, who was signed four days into camp, gave the Diamondbacks six veteran starters including Kelly, Ryne Nelson, Eduardo Rodriguez, Brandon Pfaadt and Mike Soroka, who was signed as a free agent at the Winter Meetings.
"One of the huge benefits of doing this, not only having a talent the caliber of Zac, but also it builds out another really good starting pitcher in our rotation,” general manager Mike Hazen said. “I don't know how many starting pitchers we used last year. I'm assuming we're gonna use the same amount of starting pitchers this year.”
Last year, the Diamondbacks also appeared to have a surplus of starters with Corbin Burnes, Gallen, Kelly, Pfaadt, Rodriguez, Nelson and Jordan Montgomery, but by the end of camp Montgomery was out due to Tommy John surgery, and a month into the season Burnes went down with the same injury.
Challenging it
Like most teams, the Diamondbacks are still experimenting with different strategies when it comes to the ABS system that is being used in Spring Training and in the regular season this year, but they have some early guidelines.
For now, Lovullo wants only the catcher and batter to challenge and not the pitcher, who he feels is too far away and does not have a good enough perspective on things.
"We talked about if you're 100 percent [certain] and you're the catcher or hitter, you can fire and you can [challenge]," Lovullo said. "I do not want to be left without a challenge in the seventh, eighth or ninth inning when the other team has theirs. I think we would be at a distinct disadvantage. We talked about it being a team challenge, a team concept, and you want to try to win innings, not at-bats, that's the starting point."