More than a year after his last Major League game, former Boston Red Sox pitcher Joe Kelly is calling it a career.<\/p>\n
Kelly essentially announced his retirement<\/a> on the \u201cBaseball Isn\u2019t Boring\u201d podcast, saying he\u2019s no longer pitching. True to form, he refused to explicitly say he\u2019s retiring, taking exception to the phrase.<\/p>\n \u201cRetiring is, like, something my grandmother did,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cIt\u2019s so disrespectful. I\u2019m sorry all you people out there that work a real job. You guys deserve to retire. Athletes don\u2019t. We just stop (expletive) playing\u2026No more retirement (expletive).\u201d<\/p>\n Kelly last pitched in 2024 for the Los Angeles Dodgers, earning his third World Series ring. After going unsigned<\/a> in 2025, the 37-year-old right-hander is hanging it up.<\/p>\n His eventful MLB career spanned 13 seasons from 2012 to 2024. He pitched for four teams and won three championships along the way, primarily as a reliever.<\/p>\n Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n After beginning his career with the St. Louis Cardinals, Kelly spent four and a half seasons with the Red Sox from 2014 to 2018. He initially struggled as a starter but had more success after moving to the bullpen, leading the 2018 World Series champs with 73 relief appearances.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Kelly flourished during that playoff run, allowing just one earned run with 13 strikeouts over 11 1\/3 postseason innings. He always saved his best for October, posting a 0.51 ERA in the playoffs with Boston.<\/p>\n He joined the Dodgers after pitching against them in the 2018 Fall Classic, helping them win titles in 2020 and 2024.<\/p>\n Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n Talkative<\/a>, combative<\/a> and armed with a good fastball, Kelly had a reputation for getting under opponents\u2019 skin and occasionally starting brawls. He was a character who stood out from the crowd with his unique personality and presence, making him one of the more memorable relievers in recent Red Sox history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than a year after his last Major League game, former Boston Red Sox pitcher Joe Kelly is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,203545,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-380421","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-joe-kelly","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}