{"id":486868,"date":"2026-02-18T01:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/486868\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T01:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:02:09","slug":"gallen-merrill-kelly-deserves-opening-day-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/486868\/","title":{"rendered":"Gallen: Merrill Kelly deserves Opening Day start"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SCOTTSDALE \u2014 Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Merrill Kelly sat in the road dugout along the first-base side at Dodger Stadium on Opening Day in 2019, wrapping his head around where he was.<\/p>\n<p>Hyun-Jin Ryu was warming up on the mound, Dodger Stadium was bustling and although Kelly did not pitch in that game, it was the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/LAN\/LAN201903280.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">official start<\/a> to the 30-year-old rookie\u2019s big league career.<\/p>\n<p>Seven years later, Kelly will get the ball to open Arizona\u2019s season on March 26 at the Dodgers, <a href=\"https:\/\/arizonasports.com\/mlb\/arizona-diamondbacks\/merrill-kelly-12\/3611758\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">the first Opening Day<\/a> start of his career.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI remember sitting in the dugout and seeing the \u2018Dodgers\u2019 across his chest, and obviously Chavez Ravine gets loud at that moment and it really hit me that it was the first time I was a big leaguer,\u201d Kelly said on Sunday. \u201cFor that to come full circle and have my first Opening Day start in L.A. is pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Diamondbacks wasted no time this year in making the announcement, even with the pending acquisition of free agent pitcher Zac Gallen, whose signing became official shortly after.<\/p>\n<p>Gallen started the previous three season openers for the Diamondbacks, even over Corbin Burnes last year, a Cy Young winner who signed the biggest contract in club history.<\/p>\n<p>Gallen was excited for Kelly, his teammate since 2019, to receive the opportunity after they <a href=\"https:\/\/arizonasports.com\/mlb\/arizona-diamondbacks\/zac-gallen-back\/3611885\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">unexpectedly reunited in Arizona<\/a> after free agency.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think Merrill deserves it fully,\u201d Gallen said on Sunday. \u201cI was happy he got it. I saw it yesterday. I congratulated him today. I think he\u2019s gonna do a great job. I think for him, I can\u2019t speak for him, but I would imagine being from here and what he\u2019s gone through in his career having to go to Korea and come back and establish himself as one of, if not the most underrated starter in baseball, I think it\u2019s a perfect spot. I think it\u2019s good for him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kelly said he got flashbacks when he learned the news from manager Torey Lovullo.<\/p>\n<p>He thought back to that spring day in Los Angeles but also to his experience in Korea, where he pitched for four years before making his MLB debut.<\/p>\n<p>Kelly said he\u2019s watched a lot of Opening Day games from the bench, including his first game with the SK Wyverns of the Korean Baseball Organization in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m humbled,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cBeing able to take the ball and get us going and kick us off means a lot. Obviously, coming back this year, forever grateful for the organization not only for giving me the first chance to be a big leaguer, but obviously continuing to believe in me throughout the course of my career.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re always imagining stuff in the backyard, whether it\u2019s two outs in the bottom of the ninth in the World Series, Opening Day at Dodger Stadium would probably be one of those,\u201d Kelly added.<\/p>\n<p>The 37-year-old was Arizona\u2019s most effective starter last season until he was traded at the deadline to Texas with a 3.22 ERA in 22 starts.<\/p>\n<p>Kelly returned to the Diamondbacks on a two-year, $40 million deal with a vesting option for a third season. He said he did not take a \u201chometown discount,\u201d but he explained that there was a three-year offer on the table from San Diego he turned down to come back to Arizona for a two-plus-one contract. Being back in his hometown with family was an important factor.<\/p>\n<p>How the Diamondbacks\u2019 rotation shakes out behind him with Burnes on the injured list until possibly July is to be determined, but Arizona trusts Kelly with the responsibility to go into Dodger Stadium on a night when the 2025 World Series banner gets raised on national television and quiet the crowd.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"twitter-follow-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/alexjweiner\" data-show-count=\"false\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Follow @alexjweiner<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arizonasports.com\/arizona-sports-newsletter-signup\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/AZSportsEmail-830x100-1.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0 auto;\" class=\"mobile-signup\"\/>\t&#13;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/AZSportsEmail-830x100-1.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0 auto;\" class=\"desktop-signup\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>                    <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCOTTSDALE \u2014 Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Merrill Kelly sat in the road dugout along the first-base side at Dodger&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-486868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486868","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=486868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}