Merrill Kelly gets rocked by sizzling White Sox in return to Chase Field

PHOENIX — It was not quite 8-0 bad, but the start of Tuesday’s Arizona Diamondbacks game took the wind out of Chase Field pretty quickly for the second straight game, an 11-5 loss to the Chicago White Sox.

Starting pitcher Merrill Kelly — in his first home start of the season — walked off the mound after the first inning with a 4-0 deficit.

Munetaka Murakami, the second batter of the game, hit a potential double play grounder, but it got stuck in the webbing of third baseman Nolan Arenado’s glove. Everyone was safe, a sliding doors moment for this game as the first inning snowballed from there. Kelly took accountability for not picking up his teammate after a “freak play.”

Kelly threw 34 pitches in that first inning, and his Chase Field return soured further in the second when Murakami, Miguel Vargas and Colson Montgomery hit back-to-back-to-back home runs to go up 7-0.

Murakami previously took Kelly deep during the championship game of the World Baseball Classic in 2023 for Japan. The rookie who set the home run record in Japan’s NBP is up to nine big flies this season, having homered in four straight games.

The White Sox (9-14) have rocketed 13 home runs over the past five games, 10 coming across the past three. Chicago scored 22 runs in its last series against the Athletics.

Kelly was able to push through 4.1 innings despite the poor start, but he was charged with eight runs. It was an oddly similar stat line as his second start of 2025 when he allowed nine runs to the Yankees.

“Just a bad day,” Kelly said. “I mean, really just a bad couple innings, bad couple batters when you look at the total body of work. It is what it is.”

Arizona fell to 13-10 after consecutive losses.

Diamondbacks’ starters having a tough couple games

D-backs starter Ryne Nelson allowed eight runs without getting out of the first inning in Sunday’s loss to the Toronto Blue Jays. That’s two straight games when the Diamondbacks needed a miraculous comeback after the first couple frames.

The starting rotation had previously pitched really well, too. Entering Sunday, Arizona starters accounted for a 3.40 ERA, ninth in Major League Baseball. Two starts later, that number increased to 4.03, 16th in MLB.

“Starting pitchers go out there and set the tone for us and unfortunately they jumped on Merrill and never let him really get into rhythm,” manager Torey Lovullo said. “You’re just playing catch up the whole time.”

For Kelly, this was his second start of 2026 after he missed nearly the first three weeks of the year with a back irritation that popped up in spring training.

He awarded the White Sox too many advantage counts, surrendering 10 hits and three walks.

“A lot of 3-1 counts, a lot of hitter’s counts today,” Kelly said after throwing 101 pitches. 

On the ground ball in the first inning, Kelly said, “I think that’s a play you probably won’t see the rest of the year. I think that’s kind of a freak thing. It just gets stuck in somebody’s glove like that. But regardless, I have to do my job after that and minimize the damage.”

The Diamondbacks were able to ride Brandon Pfaadt for 6.1 innings of relief on Sunday but had to patch Tuesday’s game together with Taylor Clarke, Jonathan Loaisiga, Kevin Ginkel, Ryan Thompson and catcher James McCann.

McCann entered in the ninth inning for Thompson (three earned runs) and recorded three outs without an earned run, exclusively lobbing eephus pitches. Arizona trailed 11-2 before rallying in the bottom half.

Ildemaro Vargas keeps the hits coming

Arizona’s offense wasted an opportunity to respond quickly with two men on base in the first inning, and the lineup went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position until the final frame.

Ildemaro Vargas hit a three-run home run in the ninth inning to extend his hitting streak to 16 games to start the season, shooting his OPS to 1.004. The blast to right field plated Arenado for the veteran’s 1,000th career run.

Alek Thomas hit his first home run of the season in the fifth, going the opposite way off White Sox starter Sean Burke.

Chicago made a series of excellent defensive plays, as well, most notably a Superman diving play from right fielder Everson Pereira that saved at least one, maybe two runs in the seventh inning.

The Diamondbacks finished with eight hits and seven walks, but the White Sox collected 14 hits with eight walks and a hit batsman.

“That’s not a recipe for a winning baseball games,” Lovullo said.  

Keep the baseball?

There were a couple particularly odd plays on Tuesday, starting with the ball stuck in Arenado’s glove and ending with one of the strangest first career home runs perhaps ever.

In the ninth inning, Chicago rookie Sam Antonacci hit a sharp ground ball down the third-base line off Thompson. The ball clearly touched the mitt of the Golden Glover, who sits with security down the line to retrieve foul balls.

Left fielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. stopped and pointed at what he perceived as a dead ball, but Antonacci motored around the bases and scored on an inside-the-park home run, which doubled as his first big league homer.

After the umpires gathered, the play was deemed unreviewable since it was called a clean home run on the field.

“It looked like there was contact, but because the umpire didn’t call interference and called it safe and clean, the play is unreviewable,” Lovullo said. “So, the rule doesn’t make sense to me. I’m sure I’ll get a nice explanation when I start asking some questions tomorrow.”

This was the second time during this homestand when a Golden Glover made contact with a ball in play.

E-Rod bump day

The Diamondbacks will turn to Eduardo Rodriguez on the mound on Wednesday, as the club looks to avoid its first series loss since facing the Los Angeles Dodgers to start the year.

The D-backs will face left-hander Anthony Kay, who will make his fifth appearance since returning to MLB after pitching in Japan over the previous two seasons.

The game starts at 6:40 p.m. on ESPN 620 AM and the Arizona Sports app.

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