FORT MYERS, Fla. -- With good reason, Joe Kelly didn't arrive to Spring Training until Tuesday. The righty was in California to witness the birth of his son, Knox Joseph.
"It feels great," Kelly said of the birth of his first child. "I'm a little tired, but other than that, I'm not really getting any sleep with the baby. I woke up at 6 [a.m. ET] today, which is 3 o'clock California time so I'm kind of running on seven coffees and ready to go home and take a nap."
Kelly threw an eight-minute bullpen session on Tuesday and stayed on a throwing program while he was in California.

"I still got work in," said Kelly. "I took probably like four days off being in the hospital and stuff like that. The next day when we were discharged to go home, we went home, dropped them off and went straight to the gym and to a local high school by my house. I called a catcher, said, 'Hey, I have to get off a mound twice before I leave. I got off the mound with him once, took a day off, did a little lower body workout and then got off the mound Sunday, flew out Monday and got off the mound again today."
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Last week, manager John Farrell said that Kelly has the inside track to be Boston's fifth starter, but there is some competition for that role.
"Just show them basically what I've done at the end of the year last and just go out and pitch and try not to get too much out of my comfort zone." Kelly said. "Hoping we can keep trying to learn swings and understand what hitters are trying to do. Just knowing the game of pitching more and going out there and following signs and not really thinking other than what the catcher put down. So that's a little bit of what I'll try to keep working on in Spring Training and try to read swings and throw full count, offspeed pitches and be a pitcher."