Arizona Diamondbacks relief pitcher Kevin Ginkel had a 2025 season that was decimated by injuries, but he’s back healthy in 2026 and looking to help lead the Diamondbacks to another postseason run.

Ginkel had three straight strong seasons for Arizona, averaging an ERA of 3.02, but that ballooned to 7.36 in 29 games last season as he dealt with two different shoulder injuries.

What’s Ginkel’s main goal for 2026?

“It’s my health, first and foremost,” he told Arizona Sports’ Wolf & Luke Tuesday. “Watching the club last year in September, when we were really playing for some meaningful games and myself, Puck, Martinez, not being out there was just hard.

“I’d almost like not want to watch the games cause I’m like, ‘I can’t contribute.’ You know?”

The Diamondbacks fell just short of the postseason last year after making it to the World Series in 2023.

Ginkel said he wants “a taste of that again.”

The 2023 season was the best overall season of his career until that point. The Diamondbacks reliever held a 2.48 ERA across 65.1 innings pitched, with four saves (a career-high at the time), 70 strikeouts and a 0.980 WHIP.

Ginkel went on to pitch 11.2 scoreless innings in the postseason with eight hits and five walks allowed, to go alongside 15 strikeouts.

His ERA dropped a bit to 3.21 in 2024, but he pitched a career-high 70 innings, earned four saves and 77 strikeouts.

That all came plummeting down last season, when he registered his career-low -0.8 WAR. Ginkel didn’t make his season debut until April 30 due to shoulder inflammation, he was sent down to Trilpe-A at the end of May into June and then suffered a right shoulder strain in early August that knocked him out for the rest of the season.

However, Ginkel was cleared for baseball activity and had an additional MRI in mid-September 2025 to confirm. He was able to have a normal off-season, starting his throwing program in November.

“I started a little earlier this year … trying to ramp up to get into spring training,” Ginkel said. “I’m just trying to work through some tightness, but for the most part, I feel like this is stuff I can absolutely handle and take care of. I’m doing my absolute best to get in the best shape I can and get my shoulder as strong as it can be to handle 162 games.

“I want to be pitching well right now, but at the same time I really want to be peaking when we get into the second half of the year and play those big games.”

Ginkel believes Arizona will be prepared for the stress and roller coaster late-season baseball brings because of the Diamondbacks’ experiences over the last three years.

“I think there’s a level of continuity and overall comfort,” Ginkel said. “If we go through a stretch of games where we’re not playing our best ball, I think we know that there’s going to be stretches where we’re going to play really well.

“We’re going to have some bad luck. There’s just things that kind of happen throughout the year that you can’t really expect.”

Ginkel added there’s a level of “calmness” because guys like Geraldo Perdomo, Ketel Marte and Gabriel Moreno have been around for a few years now and gone through the ups and downs of the season.

“We might not play our best games through a stretch, but we know it all matters about how you play at the end of the year,” Ginkel said. “You saw it last year, the last three weeks, we’re kind of fighting around 500. We’re two, a game and a half back, and it’s like, ‘Man, we’re in this.’ We’re playing playoff teams too and it was just incredible to watch.”