PHOENIX -- Merrill Kelly continued his run of good starts Thursday, tossing seven shutout innings as the D-backs beat the Brewers, 5-0, at Chase Field.

More impressively for Kelly, he managed to get out of the first inning unscathed.

The right-hander has put together an outstanding season, especially of late. He was NL Pitcher of the Month for July and over his last 12 starts he has compiled a 2.01 ERA.

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But the first innings have been tricky for Kelly. Even with Thursday's scoreless first, his ERA in the first inning this year is 5.00, and 2.42 for all innings after that.

"I wish I could kind of bottle the feeling that I get from innings [four] and on to the first three," Kelly said. "It would probably make the first part of the game a little bit easier for me. But once I settled down and got the rhythm going, I felt pretty good about it today."

The Brewers put two runners on against Kelly in the first with a Willy Adames single and Rowdy Tellez reaching on a fielder's choice.

"I’ll take it," Kelly said. "Any time I can get a scoreless first, no matter how ugly or bad I feel in it, I’ll definitely take it. I would like to be able to find a way to get in that rhythm a little faster than I have been."

Kelly has experimented with warming up more, warming up less. You name it, he's probably tried it or at least thought about trying it. It's worth noting that it's something that has been an issue for him throughout his career as he had a 5.50 first-inning ERA for his career coming into Thursday.

Even on a night like Thursday when everything else clicks for him and he doesn't allow any early runs, those first few innings just feel different to him.

"I don’t know if it’s that maybe I’m a little too juiced up the first couple innings and then I fall into that rhythm," Kelly said. "Maybe I get a little fatigued and don’t try as hard [after that]? But from the third inning on, I felt pretty good today. I definitely recognize the feeling that I have that’s different between the first inning and the third inning. I guess the best thing for me to do is to try to feel that way out of the jump, rather than in the third. I’m not sure how exactly I’m going to get there, but I know the feeling that I want, so I’m just going to try to, I guess, try to do it. That’s the easiest way I can describe it."

Outside of winning the NL Pitcher of the Month Award in July, Kelly tends to not get much recognition. Brewers outfielder Hunter Renfroe, who faced Kelly a lot during his time with the Padres, said some of his Brewers teammates didn't have much experience facing him.

"I think we could have done a better job of the approaches we took at the plate, if that answers your question,” he said after collecting one of the Brewers’ four hits. “I think some didn’t really understand the challenge ahead of us about facing him. They’d never really faced him. A lot of kids had never faced him before and didn’t really know. He’s very good at what he does. He has three pitches he can throw for strikes, and they basically are the exact same pitch that goes three different ways. You have to pick one and hope you hit it. You have to try to get him over the plate, get him up and try to do damage on it.”

The win was the sixth in the last seven games for the D-backs, who are seemingly energized by an influx of young players and have now passed the Giants for sole possession of third place in the NL West.

It's not where the D-backs want to be, of course, but this is a team that lost 110 games last year, so it's a huge improvement.

"I think for us to see that third-place slot, for the guys in this clubhouse, the young guys in this clubhouse to see that if we play the way we’re playing right now, we can be a good team," Kelly said. "I think if we finish the year this last month and kind of bear down and play the way that we’re playing, I think it’ll leave a good taste in everybody’s mouth coming back for next year and moving forward."