{"id":601044,"date":"2026-03-02T04:39:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T04:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/601044\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T04:39:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T04:39:18","slug":"latest-on-merrill-kelly-corbin-carroll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/601044\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest On Merrill Kelly, Corbin Carroll"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Diamondbacks have already had to deal with an unwelcome number of injury scares to key players, though Sunday\u2019s news brought some optimism that Merrill Kelly<\/a> and Corbin Carroll<\/a> could both still be a part of the Opening Day roster.<\/p>\n

Right at the very start of Spring Training, Carroll underwent surgery to fix a broken hamate bone in his right hand, putting him out of action for roughly 4-to-8 weeks (the usual timeline following such procedures).\u00a0 Last weekend, Kelly was scratched from throwing a live batting practice session due to some back soreness, and the discomfort persisted even though both an MRI and CT scan came back clean.\u00a0 Officially, the diagnosis is intercostal nerve irritation, according to the D\u2019Backs.<\/p>\n

It was enough for Kelly to tell the media last Wednesday<\/a> that he was likely going to be starting the season on the 15-day injured list, though his outlook was different today.\u00a0 Kelly told MLB.com\u2019s Steve Gilbert<\/a> and other reporters that he received an injection of cortisone and lidocaine earlier this week, and had a pain-free session of catch today.\u00a0 While Kelly won\u2019t act as the Diamondbacks\u2019 Opening Day starter on March 26, the aim is for Kelly to now pitch at the back of Arizona\u2019s rotation, which would line the righty up for his season debut during the team\u2019s second series of the year.<\/p>\n

The D\u2019Backs begin the 2026 campaign with three games in Los Angeles against the Dodgers, and then after an off-day, return home for a seven-game homestand against the Tigers and Braves.\u00a0 Given the March 29 off-day, the Snakes could technically delay Kelly\u2019s first start beyond the first five games, though that would leave the club essentially playing a man short until Kelly is ready to take the mound.<\/p>\n

With more than three weeks to go until Opening Day, there is still time for Kelly to restart his throwing progression and get fully ready to go, assuming his good health persists.\u00a0 Even if Kelly is only built up to throw something like 50-60 pitches, the D\u2019Backs could use a piggyback starter or lean on the bullpen during the veteran\u2019s first start.\u00a0 On the flip side, Arizona could also simply place Kelly on the IL to give him extra time to heal up, and make sure he is ready to hit the ground running once he takes the mound.<\/p>\n

As for Carroll, it has been a little under three weeks since his February 11 surgery, but he described his progress as \u201cdefinitely ahead of schedule.\u201d\u00a0 The outfielder told Gilbert<\/a> and other reporters that he started catching fly balls (Carroll\u2019s right hand is his glove hand) today, and he has started to hit with both hands on the bat.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very low intensity, like flips and tee [work]\u2026.I think some other guys that have gone through a hamate injury were happy to see where I am [given] how far I am out of surgery,\u201d Carroll said.<\/p>\n

Manager Torey Lovullo described Carroll\u2019s process as \u201cright up to that line of doing too much.\u00a0 He\u2019s pushing as hard as he can and as far as he can, and we love that.\u00a0 So we\u2019ll continue to get updates from [hand surgeon] Don Sheridan and our medical team about what the next steps are, but yeah, he\u2019s doing really, really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being able to hit and catch normally without any discomfort is only part of Carroll\u2019s path to recovery, as he\u2019ll then have to try and make up for time lost during Spring Training.\u00a0 Carroll has been taking part in other baseball activities, so he won\u2019t be starting from square one once he is fully cleared.\u00a0 It then becomes a question of how many Cactus League games Carroll may be able to play in before March 26, and how many he\u2019ll need before he feels properly ramped up for the regular season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Diamondbacks have already had to deal with an unwelcome number of injury scares to key players, though…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,1538,660,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-601044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-corbin-carroll","10":"tag-merrill-kelly","11":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116157740851211334","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}