Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander Merrill Kelly, who has risen through the ranks of the KBO to become a major league starter, reflects on his time in South Korea.
In an interview following the Diamondbacks’ 9-1 win over the Texas Rangers in Game 2 of the World Series at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, on Monday (Sept. 29), Kelly reflected on his performance (seven innings, three hits, one walk, nine strikeouts, one run).
“I think it was just a matter of executing the plan. If you think back to last year in Philadelphia and the Championship Series, all the pitches that I got hit with were pitches that I didn’t throw as planned. I’ve done that before, but especially after that game, I was really focused on executing my pitches. I took care of every single pitch,” he said, explaining the key to his strong performance.
“I threw it as if it was the most important pitch of the game, and after I threw that one, I thought about the next one the same way,” he said.
“There’s a time difference between here and Korea, so when I woke up in the morning, there was a big league game going on,” said the former KBO player, who played for the SK Wyverns for four years from 2015 to 2018. It was my routine to wake up in the morning, have a cup of coffee, and check the big league scores,” he says, adding that even when he was playing in the KBO, he dreamed of playing in the big leagues.
“I was literally tens of thousands of miles away, but my mindset was always to come back here,” he said, adding that he was thinking about returning to the big leagues.
“The language barrier was a hindrance, but the people there tried to help me as much as they could, but in the end, it was my own voice and my own pitching coach that helped me there,” he said, adding that his own voice was the most helpful.
“Obviously, the language is completely different than here, and the way they approach pitching and mechanics is not the same as the way I look at it, so there are times when trying to attack the same problem isn’t going to produce the results I want, so I have to filter out the information that I can use and the information that I need to discard,” he recalls.
“I don’t think anybody expected me to pitch in the World Series. A lot of things have to go right for that to happen. You have to be in the right place, the right time, and the right team. You have to have good teammates who can contribute, like Tommy Pham and Gabby (Gabriel Moreno). It’s not just me, it’s a team effort,” he said, giving credit to his teammates. 토토사이트
His family came to the stadium to watch him pitch, and he said, “It was really special. I hadn’t seen my grandmother since 2011. I can’t wait to see her,” he said of his family’s visit to the stadium.
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