Ryne Nelson Awaits Opportunity to Pitch in Diamondbacks' Rotation

The Diamondbacks will have a tough decision on what to do with Ryne Nelson. Nelson made the Opening Day roster as the long reliever after Brandon Pfaadt won the competition for the final rotation spot.

So far in three games, Nelson has pitched a total of seven innings. With each successive outing, his pitch count per outing has decreased from 50 to 33, then 31. While he's been more efficient at getting outs, the dropoff in workload will make it more difficult to fully stretch him out into a starter.

The Diamondbacks have to be careful when it comes to stretching out Nelson. The team has had some notable injuries trying to stretch out relievers to start, with Drey Jameson being the most recent example.

Jameson was constantly switching between starting and relieving in 2023 and ended up requiring Tommy John surgery. It's a mistake they don't want to repeat with another young, electric arm. Jameson not only missed the remainder of 2023, but also all of 2024 due to surgery and the rehab process. Making the same mistakes could result in not having Nelson for the 2026 season, when they'll need him in the rotation.

Lovullo pledged that won't happen in Nelson's case. "At some point, when it shrinks up, we're not going to stretch it back out," Lovullo said.

While the starting rotation has remained intact through the first two turns, there could come a point later in the season when Nelson may have to fill a vacant spot.

During his appearance on Burns & Gambo, the right-hander admitted that returning to the rotation would require a transition process from where he's at right now.

"There will be a little bit of a transition if I did have to go back in the rotation. I think there would probably be a slight buildup that would have to happen. For right now, if I can get some more innings under my belt, I think I'd be ready. We've got a really talented starting staff as now and I would never hope for anything to happen to those guys."

Nelson isn't too preoccupied with the type of role he'll have, focusing more on handling his current role and doing his part to help the team. In fact he stated he had no role preference when speaking to Jack Sommers of Arizona Diamondbacks On SI.

"I think that it's like as talented as our starting rotation is, our bullpen is just as talented as well" Nelson said. "And I think that whatever I can do to go out there and get quality outs and to help this team win, in the bullpen, there's a lot of different ways you can help the team.

"One of them is eating up innings and saving the pen. Obviously, being a closer would be pretty fun, but we've got a lot of pretty talented guys out there that can do that. Throwing some leverage innings here and there and going out there and competing is what I'd like to do."

For Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo, it's a week-to-week process on trying to keep the young right-hander stretched out enough to start.

"We'll take it week by week with Nelly," Lovullo told Sommers "Give him three, four days, gas him up again, see how far he can go. But for right now, we're still lined up to where if there was an emergency, he could stretch out for us."

If the situation were to call for Nelson to step up and fill a vacancy in the rotation, it would likely take at least a couple of starts to get him stretched out fully. He got up close to 60 during spring training and said he could have thrown 45-50 in his most recent outing.

Pitching coach Brian Kaplan told Lovullo that they're going to have to take it day-by-day in monitoring Nelson's workload to determine how quickly they could get him fully stretched out. They are still confident they can build off the 30-35 pitch range relatively quickly.

At the same time, should Nelson fall below the 30-35 pitch range for more than a couple outings, they'll reach that point of no return, and then need to commit to him as a reliever full-time.

That would present several other problems. It not only weakens their starting pitching depth, but also exacerbates a potential bullpen roster crunch that is looming with the eventual return to health of Kevin Ginkel and Kendall Graveman, as well as the need to consider bringing back Jameson to the major leagues sooner rather than later.

If the D-backs find they don't need Nelson as a starter in MLB but their other short relief options are lining up to return to the major league roster, then Nelson may be optioned to Reno to stay stretched out as a starter. While the pitcher is the ultimate team player, the best pitcher of the 2024 second half may be pitching in Triple-A.