Casey Kelly has had more advanced pub than a lot of rookies. He was a big-time draftee for the Red Sox and famously split time as a shortstop and a pitcher in the minors. Then he was part of the Adrian Gonzalez trade v.1.
On a personal note, the girlfriend lives in San Antonio, has season tickets to the Double-A Missions and watched him pitch a bunch last year during which time she decided he was one of her baseball boyfriends, so I get an earful about him. I showed her, though: I saw him in his skivvies in the clubhouse during spring training back in March and won’t tell her how he looked.
Anyway, because of all of that, his major league debut last night was notable. A debut I would have missed but for the fact that the girlfriend reminded me of it -- which is awful on my part considering he was pitching against the Braves and I wasn’t planning on watching them -- but I tuned in anyway. And the kid was impressive.
I wasn’t a dominating start. He only struck out four and was only touching the low 90s when scouting reports say he’s capable of much more. But he was nonetheless impressive. His curve looked great, fooling many a Brave batter. He held Atlanta scoreless for six innings before the bullpen took the shutout the rest of the way. Thank God he didn’t strike out 12 or something or else the girlfriend would be writing mash notes to him all morning.
Anyway, just another thing going right for the Padres these days.
