BOSTON - If not for a pitching staff that is falling apart at the seams, there's a good chance Joe Kelly would be pitching for the PawSox or out of the Red Sox bullpen.
But they need arms, and Kelly has a working one. On Friday, it was working better than it has in quite some time.
Sure, the Sox offense was clicking on all cylinders, but Kelly was holding up his side of things as well.
After allowing a home run in the first inning - something that's happened far too often this season - Kelly settled down to pitch five shutout innings, retiring 16 of his final 19 batters faced. Meanwhile, the Sox erased the 1-0 deficit in a hurry and proceeded to score 10 runs through the six innings that Kelly pitched en route to a 15-1 win.
"Team played very, very well today," Kelly said. "Obviously I gave up a homer in the first. These guys responded and answer back and was one of the best offensive explosions I've ever seen probably when I've pitched and since I've been called up to the big leagues. It was something really, really fun to watch."
All in all, Kelly pitched 6.0 innings of one-run, four-hit ball, walking a pair and striking out six. He's now won each of his last three starts, his longest streak since he won his final three starts of the 2014 season and first of this season.
"Joe pitched great," Travis Shaw said. "He gave up that hit in the first inning and after that he was lights out. He was commanding his pitches and it's the best I've seen him this year. So it was a great night for him."
There was no extra emotion for Kelly on the mound tonight even with the news that John Farrell had stage 1 lymphoma. That's because Kelly didn't find out about it until he was out of the game. Starting pitchers usually show up to the ballpark late, and clearly Kelly wasn't present for the team meeting when Farrell told the team the news. But Kelly did get a chance to speak with Farrell, who stuck around in the back during the game.
"That's obviously something that is terrible news," Kelly said of Farrell's cancer. "I went in there and talked to him after I came out of the game. I asked the team, I was like, 'Where's Farrell at?' and they told me. So it's definitely something very, very sad. Our guys are trying to rally up. Hopefully he gets through this thing cancer-free and beats this thing. Like I said, I was talking to him and it's kind of a blessing in disguise, he went in for a little hernia surgery and they found a little bit of cancer and found it early. It's just something that we'll be praying for him."