BRADENTON, Fla. – Mitch Keller made a start today at Pirate City, getting ready for the upcoming minor league season, where he will be pitching in Altoona. Keller had a bit of a rough outing, going just over four innings with two runs on three hits, along with three walks and five strikeouts.
Keller started off strong, getting three strikeouts and three groundouts against his first six batters. He followed that up with a fly out and a strikeout to his first two batters of the third inning. After a single, followed by an error by Stephen Alemais, he started experiencing control issues. That led to two walks in a row, with one of those bringing in a run with the bases loaded.
The fourth inning saw Keller give up a single, but he got out of the inning without any damage. He issued a home run to start the fifth inning, followed by another walk before being pulled.
The control was unusual for Keller, although as you can see in the video below (which only includes the third through fifth innings) he seemed to be working on a few specific things. He was throwing his curveball on the outside against lefties at times, while working the pitch inside to right-handers. He was also throwing the changeup a bit, getting good movement, but having trouble controlling it on the outside edge against lefties.
Keller’s velocity was pretty standard, sitting 93-95 MPH and touching 96. The curve also had some good break, leading to one of his strikeouts, with the rest coming on the fastball. Only one of the five strikeouts came swinging, which was on a 95 MPH fastball in the fourth inning.
Here is video of Keller:
The Offense
There were also some offensive highlights to watch on both fields with the upper level teams at home. Here is Kevin Kramer hitting a triple on a line drive to the left-center gap:
Here is Will Craig hitting a single:
Ke’Bryan Hayes hit a triple to the left-center gap earlier in the game, and also added this single:
Lolo Hits a Homer
Finally, here’s a video from yesterday of Lolo Sanchez hitting a home run:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bg1rUdghBOu/
