SCOTTSDALE — When it comes to the Arizona Diamondbacks’ impending decision regarding the fifth starter in the rotation, manager Torey Lovullo provided some perspective on Monday.
The D-backs have one spot for three contenders — Brandon Pfaadt, Ryne Nelson and Jordan Montgomery — with 10 days until the season begins.
“Putting our best players on the team at one time and taking them to Chase Field, that’s the space I’m living in,” Lovullo said before a Cactus League game against the Los Angeles Angels.
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“But there’s a lot of people around me that have different parts of that conversation. So we’re trying to figure that out. We got to have depth. We got to have starter six, seven and eight ready to step in and help us.”
Lovullo admitted having the best 13 pitchers on the roster may bump a potential starter or two to the bullpen.
Pfaadt is coming off a gem of a spring training outing with five innings of shutout ball against the San Diego Padres’ starters. Nelson had been strong this spring before a blowup outing on Monday against Kansas City, while Montgomery has been held to one Cactus League appearance due to a finger injury at the start of camp. He will start on Wednesday.
Lovullo maintained the club’s stance that it does not want to move a potential starter into a bullpen role and then have to stretch them back out if needed.
The team did so with Drey Jameson in 2023 and wore it when Jameson went down needing Tommy John surgery.
“If we go down this route, and the starters are able to give us length and coverage for a certain period of time, and they’re up in the 55-60 pitch range, and something does happen, we could probably jump back into that (starter) role,” Lovullo said. “But if you shorten the amount of pitches they throw over certain length of time … we’re not gonna stretch them back out.”
There could be opportunities very early on to have multiple starters enter long relief roles when the possibility is greater they would be used for extended appearances while their counterparts build up. But there is a point of no return, Lovullo said, and that is part of the calculus.
“What that timeline is, it’s different for each guy,” Lovullo said. “We’re trying to figure that part of the process out.”
Pfaadt has not been a reliever at any point during his big league tenure, as his only appearance out of the bullpen was the result of an opener.
Nelson has a bit more experience with relieving going back to his college days at Oregon, but 55 of his 60 outings in MLB have been starts. Last year, he remained in the rotation when Montgomery struggled, leading to the latter entering the bullpen. Montgomery has five career relief appearances dating back to 2017.
The other complication is Montgomery cannot be optioned, so he has to make the team or be cut with a $22.5 million salary. Pfaadt and Nelson can be optioned, even though they’ve both earned the right to stick as major leaguers based on performance.
Montgomery has the pedigree but also a lot to prove after a 6.23 ERA season.
“I think this is probably the most depth we’ve had as a pitching staff since I’ve been here,” Monday’s starter Merrill Kelly — who enters his seventh year with the club — said of the competition.
“I have an idea of who I think it’s going to be, but I’ll keep that to myself. I think whoever’s in that spot, I think we’re in a good spot. I think whoever’s in that spot is going to do a really good job.”
Merrill Kelly pulls back on slider
Kelly got his pitch count up to 66, but he did so in 2.2 innings in an 11-5 loss to Los Angeles. His stuff, he felt, was in a good spot despite the results (three earned runs).
“There’s a lot of pitches we throw in spring in a lot of situations, a lot of counts that we probably won’t go to in the regular season just because we’re working on stuff, the lack of scouting reports and knowing what we like to do,” Kelly said.
Kelly focused on the slider on Monday, using it 24% of the time, per Statcast.
He’s incrementally upped the use of the pitch over the past couple seasons, and Kaplan has encouraged more of them this spring.
“I think that was one of the things I walked away with today, with how good it’s been in spring, I want to make sure that we’re not getting too slider-happy,” Kelly said. “I think I still need to focus on what makes me myself.”
Diamondbacks injuries: Randal Grichuk exits early
Diamondbacks right fielder Randal Grichuk came out of Monday’s game in the fourth inning due to left ankle soreness, Lovullo said, explaining the situation is not alarming.
Grichuk is not expected to miss time. He had surgery to remove bone spurs from his right ankle ahead of last season.
Catcher Adrian Del Castillo is dealing with a lower back/side issue and has not played in six days. He will be back behind the plate on Wednesday, catching Eduardo Rodriguez’s simulated game.
Reliever Kendall Graveman continues to receive treatment for his back soreness that has kept him off the mound this spring.
“Whether or not there’s a very rapid and quick recovery, I’m not sure, but think we have to start thinking about the next stages of it,” Lovullo said in terms of his Opening Day readiness.
Left-hander Blake Walston is scheduled to undergo Tommy John surgery on March 26.
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