The Dodgers entered Saturday afternoon’s game with an eleven game lead in the NL West. In an extra-innings affair, Joe Kelly entered a tie game looking to hold the Rockies scoreless and pick up a potential win. On Saturday, Kelly fired a scoreless inning paving the way for Alex Verdugo’s walk-off blast that sent the Rockies to a twelve game deficit.
Under normal circumstances that wouldn’t really count as a high leverage situation for Kelly but this season, he has been pitching under anything but normal circumstances. After signing one of the more lucrative deals that Andrew Friedman has handed out to a reliever, Kelly entered the season with heightened expectations, especially after dominating the Dodgers in the World Series.