If for a moment you can forget that Pittsburgh Pirates’ Killer Kolten Wong exists, Mitch Keller was fantastic Tuesday evening.
After two shortened starts — one due to shoulder fatigue and the other during a rough fourth inning — Keller filled the strike zone while going six solid innings against the Milwaukee Brewers.
On the night, Keller threw 71 of his 105 pitches for strikes. With that he would set a career high with ten strike outs, of which eight were on a swinging strike three. This time he didn’t lean heavily on his sinker throwing it for only 18 of his 105 pitches. Instead he leaned on his Fourseam that he threw 44 times and reached up to 98 MPH on multiple occasions. He mixed his breaking balls in well throwing his Slider and Curveball 21 times each.
As a whole he pitched well except for one hanging breaking ball to Kolton Wong in the fourth inning following a Hunter Renfroe single. In total Keller gave up four hits and two walks to go with the two earned runs and ten strike outs across his six innings.
The offense couldn’t sneak out a win for Keller as they didn’t bring the same energy up to that point.
In the third inning the Pirates took advantage of Jason Alexander slipping after holding them hitless through two innings with four strike outs. After a Hit-By-Pitch and then a walk, Oneil Cruz hit a line drive to right field with one out to score the games first run.
After the Wong homerun in the fourth inning gave the Brewers a 2-1 lead, the Pirates would wait till Keller left the game to tie things up with a Michael Chavis solo shot in the top of the 7th.
Manny Banuelos relieved Keller and pitched a scoreless eighth inning allowing only a hit.
The post-trade deadline re-shuffled Brewers bullpen went to work. Rodolfo Castro came up to bat with the bases loaded and two outs after Brad Boxberger sandwiched two walks around a Bryan Reynolds single. The revitalized Castro walked on four pitches to push across the go-ahead run and make it 3-2.
Banuelos came back out for the eighth to face left handed Christian Yelich and got him to ground out. In came Chase De Jong who finished off the inning on only three pitches.
With only a one run lead the offense thought it was best to add an insurance run in the top of the ninth. Chavis had lead off the inning with a single and moved to second on a Tucupita Marcano sacrifice bunt. After a Jason Delay strike out Oneil stepped to the plate and laced a 112.6 MPH double to the left center wall that bounced and may have left a dent in the wall for a 4-2 lead. As should be expected by now with Cruz, it was also the hardest hit ball of the evening.
Returning for a second inning of work, Chase De Jong had to begin against the infamous Wong who kicked things off with a hard hit double to right field. Brewers’ Monday night hero who really likes to pull the ball (48.2% of the time per Fangraphs) Keston Hiura stepped to the plate and hit a single against the shift just to the right of Castro. This would bring up former Pirates Andrew McCutchen who was looking to end the game on one swing with runners on the corners and he hit a very high ball that Oneil fielded in short right field for the first out.
Still not out of the weeds, De Jong got to a full count after falling behind 3-1 to Luis Urias. With the sixth pitch of the at-bat he got Urias to hit a groundball to Castro that he had to range to his left, spun towards 2B after fielding the ball and threw a dart to Cruz who then fired over (on target) to Chavis for a game ending double play. Barely beating the runner.
The double play that ended it. pic.twitter.com/ika4saCwea
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) August 31, 2022
This was the first save of Chase De Jong’s career and now gives the Pirates a chance to take the series tomorrow.
Pirates @ Brewers
Time: 2:10 PM EST
Pirates Starter: Zach Thompson (3-10, 5.33)
Brewers Starter: Freddy Peralta (4-3, 3.69)
Thompson Notes: Zach Thompson’s last appearance was out of the bullpen against the Philadelphia Phillies following Bryse Wilson. He ended up throwing five innings while allowing only a single earned run while collecting two strike outs. This will be his 22nd start of the season.
LINEUPS:
Pirates
One more in Milwaukee.#LetsGoBucs pic.twitter.com/fudY1igdvW
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) August 31, 2022
Brewers
1. Christian Yelich (L) LF
2. Willy Adames (R) SS
3. Rowdy Tellez (L) DH
4. Hunter Renfroe (R) RF
5. Kolten Wong (L) 2B
6. Keston Hiura (R) 1B
7. Luis Urias (R) 3B
8. Omar Narvaez (L) C
9. Tyrone Taylor (R) CF
UPDATE: Brubaker and Yajure return
