Former random Guardians reliever gets another call-up with upstart Athletics 

In 2023, the Cleveland Guardians used 14 relievers as they limped to a 76-86 record in Terry Francona’s final season in Cleveland. 

While some of those pitchers were among the best at their craft like Shane Bieber and Emmanuel Clase, there were also some who had “blink-and-you’ll-miss it” tenures with the clubs.

One of those pitchers is reliever Michael Kelly, who turned in 16 2/3 effective innings in while working in low-leverage.

Normally, that kind of middling production means that a player is at the end of their career and end up drifting off to the minor league and independt ranks.

But, in Kelly's case, his time with the Guardians ended up serving as a quasi-launching pad for the rest of his career, as he's gone on to pitch for the Athletics in parts of the past three seaons.

And he got another chance to add to that production late last week when the Athletics recalled him from Triple-A Las Vegas.

It's Kelly's second stint on the team's roster after he was sent down to Triple-A following four unimpressive outings in April.

Michael Kelly is back with the Athletics

But the reason his time in Cleveland served as a "quasi launching pad is because Kelly was suspended for one year midway through the 2024 season after it was found that he bet on baseball while playing in the minor leagues.

Kelly was pitching great at the time of the suspension (2.59 ERA in 28 games), and the Athletics elected to hold onto him while he was on the restricted list as opposed to sending him down to the minors.

They welcomed him back with open arms in the middle of last season following the end of his year-long suspension, and he finished last season with a 3.18 ERA in 39 2/3 innings.

He wasn't able to carry that success over into this year, however, as he blew a save against the Blue Jays in his first outing of the year and allowed an earned run in two of his next three outings before being sent down.

He made his first outing since being recalled on Sunday and had a disastrous outing where he allowed six runs in 2/3 of an inning against the Yankees.

Even though Kelly's struggled this season, he still may get more chances given how dire the A's bullpen situation is (4.39 ERA).

Hogan Harris is technically their closer, but he's one of four relief pitchers to record a save for them this season, which is a tangible example of how uncertain things ahve been for them this season.

The A's have a dangerous offense (as we saw earlier this year), but their pitching is still a work-in-progress. Kelly should still get more chances to help fix that problems, ven if his outing on Sunday wasn't a great start.

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