Tim Benz: Andrew McCutchen’s milestone overshadows Mitch Keller’s bounce-back performance
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By collecting his 2,000th career hit, Pittsburgh Pirates designated hitter Andrew McCutchen provided Sunday afternoon’s biggest moment.
However, it was Pirates pitcher Mitch Keller who provided the biggest storyline.
Keller pitched seven innings against the New York Mets en route to a 2-1 win. The right-hander allowed only one earned run, striking out seven while allowing just two hits and two walks. The performance dropped Keller’s earned run average to 3.41 and boosted his record to 8-2 on the year.
He also surpassed 100 strikeouts, reaching 101 before giving way to Dauri Moreta and David Bednar to close out the game. That’s the fourth-best total in Major League Baseball this season.
“Just pounding the zone, and when we did fall behind, using that cutter to get some weak contact,” Keller said on AT&T SportsNet after the game. “Getting some quicker innings. In the sixth and seventh innings, we got some really quick outs which helped a lot.”
Keller’s start came on the heels of three subpar outings and appeared to get him back on the All-Star track he had been on through mid-May. That’s necessary if the Pirates are to stay above .500 and remain in the National League Central pennant race. Prior to Sunday, Keller had given up 15 earned runs and 25 hits in his last three trips to the mound. During that span, his ERA jumped from 2.44 to 3.60.
“You’ve got to flush it and move on and have the confidence in yourself to know that those three happened. You have to move on and readjust and get after it again,” Keller said.
According to manager Derek Shelton, the adjustment Keller is making is a willingness to rely on his cutter more frequently and in high-leverage situations.
“It’s become a weapon for him,” Shelton said to the media after the game. “I think we’ve seen the evolution of Mitch Keller, not only with the sinker but with the cutter to combine with the curveball, the sweeper and the changeup. When you’re adding pitches during the season, it shows number one, your willingness to learn, which I think we all know Mitch does. And then your willingness to execute.”
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The last three outings didn’t appear to be so much about a willingness to execute as much as it was an ability to command his pitches.
The repertoire that had helped Keller amass eight quality starts in his first 10 outings seemed to betray him against the Mariners, Giants and A’s, even though Keller managed to win two of those games.
The 27-year-old had no such issues Sunday against the Mets.
“The command of the zone, he executed all the pitches,” Shelton said. “The sweeper was really good. He mixed in the cutter. Then, later in the game, the fastball. Still in the seventh, I think he was 97-98 (miles per hour). He was really impressive. It was a nice bounce-back outing for Mitch.”
And essential.
The Pirates only managed two runs off a Tucupita Marcano RBI and a Jack Suwinski solo home run. Aside from Marcano’s hit in the fourth, which plated Ji Hwan Bae from second base, the Pirates were hitless in their other five trips to the plate with runners in scoring position. They left eight men on base Sunday after stranding seven the day before on the way to a 5-1 loss.
At this point, it’s too early to call Keller an “ace” or a “stopper.” But he is the closest thing the Pirates have to that right now. With the starting rotation unreliable of late and the batting order up and down, the Pirates have to know that every five days, they have a chance to win 2-1 if they need to because of Keller.
There simply aren’t enough other answers to their big-picture shortcomings on a regular basis.
During his development in the minors, Keller was long believed to be an answer along those lines. More often than not over his first four years, though, he’s proven to be much more of a complicated question.
One such question was his ability to rebound during tough games or tough stretches in a season. With apologies to McCutchen’s milestone, Keller’s evidence of being able to do exactly that on Sunday was every bit as noteworthy as No. 22 getting to No. 2,000.