Diamondbacks' Zac Gallen Opens Up on Merrill Kelly Trade

"[Kelly]'s become one of my really good friends, especially in baseball," Gallen said. "We spend a lot of time off the field together, mainly playing a lot of golf, getting dinners here and there."

"We only live 15 minutes from each other, there was a lot of nostalgia the last week or so of the season. A lot of, 'Well, this is the last golf, this is the last dinner,' things like that."

Gallen begrudgingly admitted that Kelly has the lower golf handicap of the two arms.

"I'm getting there, though, I'm getting close. I think my handicap's probably a little bit lower than it should be. ... He's a good golfer. He's a good player," Gallen said, light-heartedly.

Gallen said the return home to Chase Field on Monday felt different without Kelly, who had been with Arizona for the past seven seasons.

"It was weird [Sunday]. I always leave my keys in my locker when we leave fora road trip, so to come in and get my keys, go up to my car and walk by and not see his name plate there was a little strange. He sat diagonally from me on the plane, so a little weird, just kind of those things."

Kelly's departure, however, does come from a place of positivity. Kelly had thrown to an excelkent 3.22 ERA in what has been shaping into a career season leading the D-backs' rotation.

Despite the fact that it led to him being a commodity on the trade market, Gallen praised his friend and former teammate.

"Ultimately, I'm happy for him. I'm happy that he's pitched really well this year. He put himself in a spot to... go and pitch for a contender and see what happens."

But Arizona's fire sale doesn't necessarily rule them out of contention entirely. It might not look good now, but there's plenty of baseball left to play.

Gallen said the D-backs are set to go out and prove themselves, free of the looming Deadline and all its swirling rumors and uncertainties.

"We're happy for those guys that get to go play for some teams that are in the hunt and see what can happen, but by no means does that mean we're out of it," Gallen said. "

"We've got a lot left to prove from a lot of guys, from an individual standpoint, from a team standpoint, from an organizational standpoint."

"We've got to be able to stand there and take accountability that we just didn't give them a shot to go to add to this team. But, deadline over, distraction's over. It's just time to just play baseball and play the standard of baseball that we expect from ourselves here," Gallen said.

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