Los Angeles Angels left-hander Reid Detmers has won just two games this season, but over his past four starts, he has been a pitcher no one wants to face.
Detmers (2-5, 4.00 ERA) will try to help the Angels even their three-game series with the Diamondbacks on Tuesday night in Phoenix. Arizona won 4-3 on Monday.
Since giving up eight runs in 5/23 innings to the Athletics in a 14-6 loss on May 19, he has allowed just five earned runs in his past four starts. He has given up nine hits and walked five over 26 innings while striking out 36 and compiling a 1.73 ERA.
Detmers retired 24 of 25 batters while allowing one hit — a second-inning solo homer by Jake Burger — and striking out a career-high 14 over eight innings in a 2-1 home victory over the Texas Rangers on May 24. He threw five perfect innings at the beginning of his most recent start, a 3-2, 10-inning win on Wednesday over the visiting Houston Astros, before giving up a Shay Whitcomb home run to start the sixth. That was the only hit he allowed over seven innings while striking out nine.
“That was definitely an outing that you don’t want to waste,” Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said. “He was attacking with strikes. I mean, I feel like he was strike one, strike two on every batter that came up. He’s been executing pitches and putting guys away.”
Detmers, 26, is 1-0 with a 3.38 ERA in three career appearances against Arizona.
The Diamondbacks will start right-hander Merrill Kelly (5-5, 5.46), who also has been on a roll lately.
Kelly went 4-1 with a 3.49 ERA in six starts in May. After yielding seven earned runs in five innings in a 14-1 home loss to the Washington Nationals on June 5, he bounced back to allow four hits, all singles, and two runs in a 2-0 loss at Miami on Thursday.
Afterward, Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said he was impressed by Kelly’s entire pitch arsenal in the start.
“I can tell you just by his body language when it’s right,” Lovullo said. “He just had that swagger today, where it was his turn and his time to take the mound and get it done.”
Kelly is 1-0 with a 3.60 ERA in two career starts against the Angels. He has allowed four earned runs on five hits over 10 innings during those two contests. He has also allowed one home run by Suzuki, then a catcher for the Angels in 2021.
Monday night, first baseman Pavin Smith led the way for Arizona with two hits, including a homer in the seventh inning that broke a 2-2 tie.
Smith, who missed two months for surgery to remove bone chips from a sore left elbow, hit a towering drive down the right field line that hit near the top of the foul pole for his first home run since slugging two on June 23, 2025.
“I was happy it hit the foul pole,” Smith said. “It didn’t make the umpire have to make a decision.”
Smith had been just 2-for-23 since being activated off the injured list at the beginning of June.
“Definitely a lot of relief,” Smith said of his big go-ahead homer. “It’s definitely been frustrating and tough. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t trying to grind in the cage. Because I know I’m a good hitter, and it’s just a matter of time.”
–Field Level Media
