Tim Benz: After 1-game stumble, Mitch Keller looks to resume hot streak Wednesday
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At the end of April, Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Mitch Keller was sitting at 2-3 with an ERA of 5.18. The 2023 All-Star was supposed to be the stabilizing presence within a rotation that was otherwise going to be populated by rookies, a few bargain-bin veterans plucked from other teams, and the occasional recast bullpen arm or two.
Instead, after the first month of the 2024 season, Keller was the biggest question mark of the bunch.
Then came that first start of May against the Los Angeles Angels at PNC Park. It was a complete game five-hitter that the Pirates won 4-1 behind five strikeouts and just one walk from the 28-year-old right-hander.
Mitch Keller tosses his second career complete game! ???? pic.twitter.com/VBHc79BuHe
— MLB (@MLB) May 7, 2024
That outing launched a run of six straight outings in which Keller won all six decisions, allowed just five earned runs over 39⅔ innings pitched (1.13 ERA), and struck out 35 while walking only seven.
“It’s the overall command. The command of all four of his pitches,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said of that hot stretch from Keller. “He’s got really good stuff. But he is becoming a pitch-maker. When he has to execute a pitch, he goes back and does it.”
Keller, who starts Wednesday afternoon against the Cincinnati Reds, said there was no magic reason as to why everything clicked in that outing against the Angels and why he went on such a good roll for the next six weeks.
“I started executing a little bit better,” Keller said Tuesday. “I just kind of got in a groove. Like hitting is contagious, pitching is contagious. Right before that start, I started feeling better about how I was moving down the mound. If you feel good on the mound, more confidence comes. And there was just a snowball effect there.”
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According to Pirates pitching coach Oscar Marin, that movement “down the mound” Keller mentioned was a big deal. It’s Marin’s belief that some work he and Keller did on the force plate mound in advance of that Angels start got Keller’s stride toward home plate back in form.
“Making sure he was using his lower half — and he’s got a great one — to get that velocity,” Marin said. “One of the things we found was that when his hips were up as he was going down the slope, he created more power. If they were neutral or flat or down, he was creating less power. … We give the recommendations. We give the cues. Those cues are going to stick differently for everybody. He just found a way to translate what we said and took off from there.”
Marin also pointed to Keller’s dedication of using a specific pitch mix as a major reason for his turnaround in May.
“It was getting back to the pitch mix that got him to his identity. A full mix of his weapons,” Marin added. “One pitch complementing the other. Complementing all of his hard pitches. The four-seam to the cutter. The cutter to the two-seam. The two-seam to the cutter. That combination, then putting his breaking balls in play, was a big factor.”
Unfortunately for Keller, that momentum came to a halt in his most recent outing. He allowed a pair of two-run homers and eight total hits over six innings in a 4-3 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals last week.
Mitch Keller hadn't given up a homer since May 6. That streak is no more, thanks to Paul Goldschmidt. #STLCards
????: Bally Sports | ????: Bally Sports app pic.twitter.com/MdwkjshEfi
— Bally Sports Midwest (@BallySportsMW) June 13, 2024
DONNIE DINGERS. The #STLCards retake the lead in the sixth! pic.twitter.com/ipHuFwxK6Q
— Bally Sports Midwest (@BallySportsMW) June 13, 2024
“I just didn’t have my best stuff,” Keller said. “It wasn’t coming as I would like it. You are going to have those days. You are just going to have to battle through it. Tip the cap to them there, and you just have to move on.”
Shelton seems to think the last outing was a blip, and the real Keller is the one that emerged last month.
“He just made a couple of bad pitches,” Shelton said of the two homers allowed during that effort in St. Louis. “He threw a cutter up to (Brendan) Donovan that he left out over the plate. And the ball that (Paul Goldschmidt) hit, he left a ball out over the plate that was a bad location. He realized it and adjusted in-game. In that game, I thought he threw the ball pretty well.”
Keller and Shelton better be right because as the season moves along for the Pirates, the formula is coming into clearer focus every week: lean into the rotation, and hope the bullpen and lineup do just enough to support it.
A rotation with Keller in the middle throwing like he did in May might just be good enough to keep this team afloat throughout the summer.