Nelson goes on the attack with dominant fastball vs. Giants

PHOENIX -- On nights Ryne Nelson starts for the Diamondbacks, opposing hitters will at times ask first baseman Pavin Smith a question if they reach first base.

“People get on base and they’re like, ‘How does anybody hit his fastball? It's just like an invisaball,’” Smith said.

Without delving into all the analytics, Nelson’s fastball has good carry to it so it looks to hitters almost like it’s rising as it gets to them.

“They’ll say, ‘It just gets on you so quick,’” Smith said of opposing hitters.

Monday night was a good example of just how dominant Nelson’s fastball can be as he leaned heavily on the pitch while allowing just two runs over 6 1/3 innings in Arizona's 4-2 victory. The right-hander retired the Giants in order in the first inning on 12 pitches, all of which were four-seam fastballs.

Of the 88 pitches he threw on the night, 62 were fastballs. Batters swung 38 times on his fastball and missed it 13 of those times.

“I think that's just been the overall game plan lately is just to attack and kind of feel out how the at-bats go,” Nelson said. “But the most important thing is to get ahead of guys and control the count. If that's with the fastball, it’s with the fastball. If it's with something else that day, then reevaluate.”

Monday, it was clearly with the fastball.

“He went out there and was driving fastballs at the top of the zone as effectively as I've seen him in a long time,” manager Torey Lovullo said.

Nelson has been one of the Diamondbacks' best starting pitchers this year, which is quite a feat considering that when the season started, he wasn’t in the rotation, having lost out on the No. 5 starter's spot.

After finishing the second half of last season as Arizona’s best pitcher, Nelson could have pouted about being relegated to the bullpen, but he didn’t. Instead he talked about how much he just enjoyed going out and pitching in the big leagues whatever the role might be.

Nelson pitched seven times out of the bullpen in the first month of the season as the team tried to use him for multiple innings to keep him stretched out. He then made a spot start before returning to the bullpen for another couple of outings.

Finally, when the Diamondbacks learned that Corbin Burnes, whose signing to a six-year, $210 million deal in the offseason pushed Nelson to the 'pen in the first place, had to have Tommy John surgery, Nelson was reinserted into the rotation.

In his last four starts, he has allowed just four runs over 22 1/3 innings.

“You can only imagine what it feels like coming to the ballpark, and you get to see that every fifth day,” Lovullo said. “He's unbelievable.”

But not indestructible.

The Diamondbacks have been leery of pushing Nelson too deeply into games given how he’s been toggled back and forth from the bullpen to the rotation.

That sometimes puts Lovullo in an unenviable position of taking Nelson out while he is still pitching well.

That happened again Monday when with two outs and runners at first and second in the seventh, Lovullo pulled Nelson at the 88-pitch mark. Fans booed Lovullo as he walked to the mound and social media was filled with people questioning the move.

It looked worse when Juan Morillo gave up a two-run double to Tyler Fitzgerald to tie the game up.

“I know that I was the most unpopular man in the state of Arizona when I took out Ryne Nelson,” Lovullo said. “I'm not an idiot. I wanted to leave him in the game as bad as everybody else wanted me to leave him in the game. So I hated myself for doing it, but I had to.”