PEORIA, Ariz. — The Seattle Mariners have a different role in mind for relief pitcher Shawn Kelley this year, and Saturday he pulled out an old friend to help him with it.
Kelley, primarily a fastball-changeup pitcher last year when he rarely pitched more than one inning at a time, has gone back to the changeup he threw in college at Austin Peay.
He used it with full force — or vice versa — in the Mariners’ 4-0 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks when he pitched two perfect innings and struck out four.
“It’s not necessarily a new pitch to me, but I’ve kind of re-found the confidence I had with it back in college,” Kelley said. “I’ve got as much if not more confidence in it as any of my other pitches.”
When the Mariners traded for right-handed setup reliever Brandon League in the offseason, it gave the Mariners a strong finishing kick in the bullpen that already featured setup man Mark Lowe and closer David Aardsma.
For Kelley, that meant the likelihood of more middle relief appearances covering multiple innings. For that, he’ll need more than the fastball-slider combo he primarily threw in his rookie season last year.
“It’s a lot less pressure on the arm than throwing half sliders out there,” Kelley said. “And the other thing is if you’re going to see guys the second time through the lineup with just fastball-slider, they can eliminate one pitch and say, ‘OK, I’m not going to swing at this pitch. I’m going to look for this one.’ And then you become hittable no matter how good the other two are.
“This gives me the option to run something the other way to the lefties and something in on the righties, no matter how good the other two pitches are. And it just gives them something else to think about.”
Kelley pitched two innings Saturday for the third time in four outings and the changeup became a huge part of his success. The four strikeouts Saturday gave him 12 this month against only one walk.
“Any chance I got, where I felt like it was a good offspeed situation where I would normally throw a slider, I would throw the changeup,” he said. “Righties, lefties, it didn’t matter. And it felt great. I got a lot of swings and misses and I’m going to keep using it.”
Among Kelley’s strikeouts with the changeup was a punchout of the Diamondbacks’ Chris Snyder, who had doubled off him when he threw Snyder a slider in a similar situation Monday.
“That’s a perfect example of what that pitch can do for me,” Kelley said. “He’s a guy who’s got a longer, powerful swing and he can beat you, especially if he’s (thinking) fastball and I throw that slider that breaks into his bat. If he lengthens his swing (on the slider), he can still barrel it and get it out there. But with the changeup, I can run it in on him and it gets under his hands.
“If I can show the hitters — especially the guys in our league and the Angels, the Oaklands and Texas, guys we’re going to see a lot — that I’ve got that, it gives them something else to think about.”
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