{"id":673665,"date":"2026-04-12T00:42:45","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T00:42:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/673665\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T00:42:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T00:42:45","slug":"why-the-diamondbacks-pitching-dilemma-isnt-as-tough-as-it-looks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/673665\/","title":{"rendered":"Why The Diamondbacks’ Pitching Dilemma Isn’t as Tough as it Looks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Arizona Diamondbacks have a looming decision to make with regard to their starting rotation.<\/p>\n

As right-handed veteran Merrill Kelly is set to return from the injured list during Arizona’s upcoming series with the Baltimore Orioles, one of the D-backs’ healthy starting pitchers will be forced out of the rotation \u2014 either to a relief role or the minor leagues.<\/p>\n

There’s not much danger for Zac Gallen<\/a>, who has been the D-backs’ ace and opening day starter at times through his years in Arizona. Eduardo Rodriguez has allowed one earned run in three dominant starts.<\/p>\n

The decision comes down to the three younger arms: Ryne Nelson, Brandon Pfaadt and Michael Soroka. Nelson and Soroka both have a decent sample size of relief experience in the majors. <\/p>\n

“We’re going to figure this whole thing out, we haven’t had the conversation,” manager Torey Lovullo said of the roster crunch to. D-backs.TV’s Jody Jackson on Saturday. <\/p>\n

“We need to let all the dust settle, and we have some decisions to make. We have some thing that we need to start discussing very seriously.”<\/p>\n

But as tough as it may be to decide between three of pitchers the D-backs clearly believe in, there is a clear option to move out of his current role \u2014 Pfaadt. Here’s why:<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhy Brandon Pfaadt may be best long relief option<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Arizona Diamondbacks have a looming decision to make with regard to their starting rotation. As right-handed veteran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2404],"tags":[146,22,4314,5,38,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-673665","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-diamondbacks","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-arizona-diamondbacks","10":"tag-arizonadiamondbacks","11":"tag-baseball","12":"tag-diamondbacks","13":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116388963523445426","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673665","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=673665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}