Merrill Kelly Looks to Get the D-backs Their First Win of Season

The Arizona Diamondbacks lost 10-6 on Opening Day to the Chicago Cubs. While the offense was fine, the defense and pitching were lackluster compared to expectations entering the season. First pitch is at 6:40 p.m. on Dbacks.TV.

This will become the focus of the team tonight as they look for their first win of the season.

There were just too many defensive gaffes and mental mistakes in Thursday's game that allowed the Cubs to put up multiple big innings, including two with three runs apiece. This will change and improve as the season goes on since the D-backs are too focused on defense to not iron out theses issues.

Manager Torey Lovullo is a stickler for good defense and pitching, there should be plenty of faith that he and the coaching staff will figure out the issues and improve them.

As for the pitching, there were just too many walks and an inability to make up for the defensive issues. This will also likely improve.

Friday night's game will feature plenty of exciting festivities after the game, as it will be the first fireworks show of the year. There will be eight shows throughout the season, and Friday night will be the first one. That means the roof will be open for the game.

Pitching Matchups: RHP Merrill Kelly vs. RHP Jameson Taillon

Jameson Taillon is entering his third season with Chicago. Those two seasons have been vastly different. While he's been healthy for nearly all of both seasons, in 2023, he recorded an ERA of 4.84 while in 2024, he spun gems and lowered it to 3.27.

However, that 3.27 might have been a tad luck-induced. That's because his FIP was a much-higher 3.92. His xERA was 4.05 and his xFIP was 4.16. Plus, over those 165.1 innings last year, Taillon had just 125 strikeouts but gave up 154 hits. He also gave up 21 home runs.

Taillon doesn't strike out many batters and it's very hard to procure a walk from him so D-backs hitters will be forced to hit the ball as hard as they can and often in order to get on base.

However, he doesn't often induce ground balls either, and is rather a fly-ball pitcher. In 2023, he induced 43% fly balls and in 2024, it was 40.5%. This could play well for D-backs hitters to perhaps drive the ball deep and even over the fences.

Taillon throws a four-seam, cutter, sweeper, and curveball with the occasional sinker and changeup.

Merrill Kelly will look to start the season on the right track following an injury-plagued 2024 and strive to get Arizona its first win. Kelly is vital to the team's performance in 2025 as he's got the ability to be one of the best No.3 starters in baseball.

Although he dealt with a lot of difficulty in his health and return to playing in 2024, his final season numbers were not that bad. A 4.03 ERA is nothing to sneeze at in a smaller sample size of 73.2 innings with only 19 walks and 63 strikeouts.

Last year against the Cubs, he pitched five innings and gave up only one run, three hits, three walks, and struck out five. It was his final start before the shoulder injury.

It will be interesting to watch if Kelly throws his slider more than in year's pasts as he's worked on it significantly over Spring Training with pitching coach Brian Kaplan. Otherwise, Kelly will also lean on his four-seam, changeup, cutter, sinker, and curveball.

The key for Kelly is sequencing. He'll need to masterfully locate his pitches on the corners and sequence them to enable weak contact and strikeouts. He's done it plenty before and that will remain the goal for this start.

Starting Lineups

Jose Herrera gets the nod at catcher in his first appearance of the season as this is the only right-handed starter the team faces this series.

Meanwhile, Alek Thomas gets the start in center field a day after Jake McCarthy had issues out there and with a right-hander on the mound. He'll be looking to get off to a good start to obtain more playing time.

The lineup is left-hand heavy due to Taillon being on the mound. That entails seven of the nine hitters batting with the platoon advantage. Corbin Carroll and Ketel Marte will try to replicate the success they had against right-handed pitching last year and get their first home runs.

Bullpens

The "A" squad of the D-backs' bullpen is fully rested with none of Ryan Thompson, A.J. Puk, Justin Martinez, Shelby Miller, or Joe Mantiply working Thursday night. This should set the team up with a solid bullpen coverage ability in this game. It will be interesting to see who gets the first save chance for Arizona.

Ryan Pressly is the Cubs' closer, while Porter Hodge and Ryan Brasier will set up, and Caleb Thielbar will be the left-handed specialist who could be busy tonight. However, only Brasier didn't pitch in Thursday's opener.