Keone Kela is just 22 years of age, but the right-hander is currently assuming a crucial role in the Texas Rangers' bullpen.
He came through on Saturday during the Rangers' sweep of the Baltimore Orioles at Globe Life Park in Arlington, defusing a rally attempt by the O's by striking out Manny Machado in the latest instance of his emergence.
As Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News pointed out, Kela benefited by a brief trip to the minor leagues around the trading deadline. The Rangers acquired a few other arms for the bullpen at that time, granting Kela the opportunity to give his arm a break - and it's worked perfectly.
Since rejoining the 'pen, Kela has thrown 9 1/3 scoreless innings of work and done a great job keeping inherited runners from scoring.
In fact, Kela has become such a big part of the Rangers' pitching staff that fellow reliever Shawn Tolleson described the situation as follows when speaking with Grant: “His role right now is irreplaceable. He’s the guy who seems to come in with runners on base every time and the game on the line and the outs he’s gotten are probably the biggest outs of the game.”
So far for the Rangers in 2015, Kela has thrown 53 innings out of the bullpen, allowing 16 earned runs (good for a 2.72 ERA) and picking up 59 strikeouts. Speaking with Grant, Rangers manager Jeff Banister lauded his young reliever's pitching skills: “The situations we’ve brought him in, the swing-and-miss stuff that he has plays really well. He can play the up-and-down game [changing planes with pitch locations] really well. It can be electric. He understands the role and the situation.”
With the Rangers gunning for an AL Wild Card spot, expect to see more innings for Kela over the next couple of weeks.
