BALTIMORE -- Merrill Kelly worked into a little trouble, worked out of it, let his teammates pick him up, and then gave them a chance to win.
Or as his manager called it, “Merrill being Merrill and doing Merrill things.”
In a season debut delayed by a couple of weeks because of a left intercostal nerve issue, the 37-year-old Kelly allowed two runs over 5 1/3 innings in a 4-3 victory over the Orioles on Tuesday night.
“I didn’t feel the sharpest, probably just getting my feet underneath me in the speed of a big league game,” said Kelly, who allowed five hits and walked four, including one with the bases loaded to force across Baltimore’s second run.
“There’s nothing that can really replicate the speed and intensity of a big league game,” Kelly continued. “But glad we got the first one out of the way.”
Ildemaro Vargas hit a three-run, go-ahead homer in the fifth off Trevor Rogers (2-1), catcher James McCann had two hits and two crucial throws, and the Diamondbacks evened the final series of their nine-game East Coast trip.
Jose Fernandez completed Arizona’s four-run fifth with an RBI double off the center-field wall, scoring Geraldo Perdomo after his third hit of the night.
Taylor Clarke recorded five outs in middle relief. Juan Morillo yielded a run in the eighth before Ryan Thompson retired Jeremiah Jackson, Monday’s Orioles hero, with the bases loaded to end the frame.
Paul Sewald pitched the ninth for his sixth save as Arizona (10-8) improved to 5-3 on its joint-longest trip of the season. That guarantees they’ll return to Chase Field above .500 following Wednesday’s rubber game.
The Diamondbacks also improved to 6-4 in one-run games.
“They did an amazing job,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said of his relievers, one game after the Orioles rallied for seven runs off the bullpen in Monday’s 9-7 defeat. “All in all, you win a 4-3 game and another one-run game. We prepare for those things.”
Kelly yielded a second-inning solo shot to Samuel Basallo and a third-inning RBI free pass to Leody Taveras. But he composed himself to get Colton Cowser to fly out and end the third, setting up much crisper fourth and fifth innings.
“It’s so Merrill, isn’t it?” Lovullo said. “He gets himself into trouble, takes a deep breath, and just executes to get out of a jam. He eliminates that big number. Two is much easier than four or five. We’ve seen those big innings. [But] it’s Merrill being Merrill and doing Merrill things.”
McCann’s first pivotal throw came in the fourth, when he fired down to third to pick off Jackson for the second out with Gunnar Henderson at the plate.
“The foul ball before from Henderson … he broke hard towards home, which kind of told me he was in contact play,” McCann said. “He was trying to score on any ball put in play, and we took advantage of it.”
Kelly followed by getting Henderson to flail at a full-count changeup that dove beneath the zone.
After Vargas and Fernandez put the Diamondbacks in front in the top of the fifth, Kelly responded with a 1-2-3 bottom half, punctuated by a strikeout of slugger Pete Alonso on another burrowing offspeed offering.
He exited with one on and one out in the sixth before McCann’s arm helped his starter again, gunning down Dylan Beavers trying to steal second.
“In a game like today, where it’s sweaty and a little quick for me, just being my first one back, those outs don’t show up in the scorebook,” Kelly said. “But they’re some of the biggest plays of the game.”