What a story of perseverance that Mitch Keller has been for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Second round draft prospect turned top prospect turned near bust. Keller has emerged as not only the best pitcher on the staff, but in all of baseball recently.
A little over a year ago a graphic posted during a Pirates game painted Keller potentially one of the worst pitchers in all of baseball.
Fast forward to this season, Keller is again off to a great start, and followed up his first complete game shutout with seven more innings of scoreless baseball on Sunday against the Baltimore Orioles.
Mitch Keller's 10th, 11th, 12th…and 13th Ks pic.twitter.com/iV7H4ayarP
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 14, 2023
One of the expectations out of your best pitcher is to be a losing streak stopper, and in each of his last two start he’s done just that. Keller has ended two separate losing streaks of at least four games this month alone.
The key has been his continuous attack of the strike zone. While he hasn’t been generating a lot of swing-and-miss, he’s still picked up 21 strikeouts over his last two starts, mostly due to a called strike plus whiff rate over 35.7%.
That number jumps up even more when factoring in just his fastball and sinker, with the two combing for a 45.3 CSW%.
Keller has slowly transformed himself into a pitcher where you need to account for seven different pitches at times, and when he’s pounding the strike with the fastball/sinker, it makes it even harder to adjust to.
Things haven’t gone well for the Pirates as of late, but Keller is starting to pitch like no matter how else the rest of the week goes, they are going to have a good chance to win games whenever he toes the rubber.
Prospect Notes
— I talked about Jared Triolo the other day and how he might help the Pirates team this year as they search for offensive help.
He picked up three more hits on Sunday, two of which were doubles while driving in four runs total.
Triolo for two ✌️ pic.twitter.com/2NLN9t2L1m
— Indianapolis Indians (@indyindians) May 14, 2023
Triolo got off to a slow start last year, especially hitting for power. He ended up finishing with one of the best offensive seasons in Double-A when it comes to hits.
— Speaking of players that could help the Major League team, after his spring and World Baseball Classic, it seemed Chavez Young was on the fast track to make a cameo at some point during the season.
Still at Triple-A, Young has had a rough start to the year, but he picked up a couple of hits on Sunday, including his third home run of the season. Two of the three deep shots have come in May. He is 9-of-25 (.360) over this month.
While he hasn’t hit much this year, he still blends an intriguing amount of offensive and defensive ability should the Pirates continue to dig deep in the system for an answer in the outfield.
Daily Video Rundown
You could say the guys love a two-run double. pic.twitter.com/Lq0tLnPRYV
— Indianapolis Indians (@indyindians) May 14, 2023
Canaan Smith-Njigba drives in a pair of runs on this double in the seventh inning.
A #MothersDayMash for @masonmartin7! pic.twitter.com/v0hlrBj3uH
— Altoona Curve (@AltoonaCurve) May 14, 2023
This lefty on lefty home run from Mason Martin puts Altoona on the board in the second inning.
Pirates Prospects Daily
By John Dreker
Pirates are off today, as well as the minors, but we will have articles coming up this morning/afternoon
**Speaking of Mitch Keller…Mitch Keller Continues Shutout Run in 4-0 Pirates Win
**Some big offense in the minors on Sunday
**Today’s Pirates Prospects Daily looks at Matt Fraizer
**Our weekly Saturday draft article looks at the clear group of top five prospects and how they are all worthy of a #1 pick.
Song of the Day
This one is by special request
