Is Joe Kelly turning his season around?

Jorge Camargo
Contributing Writer

Winslow Townson/AP
Recently, Boston has been playing like a good baseball team. The remaining games are kind of pointless because the Red Sox are obviously out of contention (despite Lovullo's recent comments) but it's still nice to see some rookies like Travis Shaw and Blake Swihart swinging the bat well and pitchers like Joe Kelly turning their seasons around. I know that most of us have no faith in the right-hander, but he has no trade value and will become a free agent until 2019 and (finally) is putting decent numbers in the month of August, so we should at least take a close look at what he has accomplished.

In the month of August, Kelly has won four games in a row and hasn't allowed more than two earned runs in his last three starts. He has faced a total of 97 batters, while allowing only 25 hits, 8 walks and striking out 22. Even though Kelly began this month with an ERA of 5.94 and raised to 6.11 in his first start of August, he managed to eventually lowered it to 5.37. Also, his last start was a six-inning game in which he allowed one unearned run , the first time in this season in which he had an scoreless outing. Maybe, just maybe Kelly is finally giving positive results to demonstrate Dombrowski that he belongs in the rotation and not in the bullpen. Whether he goes to the bullpen next season or remains as a starter, he's showing the talent that made most of us believe that the deal that brought him in last year was good for Boston. The problem is that his inconsistency won't lead him far enough to gain the trust of whoever is the manager next season, at least not for now.

Tonight Joe  Kelly will take the mound against the White Sox, facing them for the second time in his career. The first time came earlier this year and it was one of his shortest outings of the season. He pitched only 3.1 innings and faced 18 batters while allowing four runs on seven hits. Let's hope that Kelly can finish his "decent" month and he can throw an acceptable game against one of the teams that gave him one of the toughest outings of his season.

Do you think Kelly is showing who he really is as a pitcher or this month is just a fluke? Leave your comments below and don't forget to follow us on Twitter at @RedSoxLife and follow me at @iamjorgecamargo for more Red Sox stuff.