Mitch Keller’s night started the way many of his 2021 outings had been: Wild.
His first pitch to Ian Happ was a fastball, high. Ball one.
The second pitch -- fastball, high. Ball two.
Three pitches later -- fastball, high. Ball four.
Keller couldn’t locate his heater for most of the first, but escaped with only one run allowed on a Kris Bryant double off a fastball that was in the zone, but left over the heart of the plate.
It’s around here that Keller could have gone off the rails and buried the Pirates. Given how his season started, that might have been expected by some. Instead, he was terrific, attacking the zone and getting the win in the Pirates’ 8-2 slump-buster against the Cubs at PNC Park Saturday.
"Felt really good,” Keller said about his night. “Just let it all out there and filling it up as much as I could. That was the game plan going in, just use my fastball and see where that gets us. Stuck to the plan and it worked."
Derek Shelton said the most important at-bat of the night came in the second inning. With a runner on second, he fell behind 3-0 to No. 8 hitter David Bote. He came in with a strike and then got Bote to ground out on the following pitch. He then retired pitcher Zach Davies and got through the inning unscathed, setting the pace for the rest of his night.
“Tonight was a positive sign, but that at-bat really was a positive sign,” Shelton said.
Peeking into the dugout after Keller’s night was done, the pitcher looked relieved. His manager, downright cathartic:
A lot of pent-up, joyous emotions were finally able to get out in the home dugout. It had been a rough stretch, and the young pitcher turned in the type of outing everyone had been waiting for.
At the very end of last year, Keller started to have some control problems for the first time in his career. Those carried into 2021.
"I mean, [I] had a rough spring,” Keller said. “Rough first outing. So it felt really good to just kind of have a good one out there. Just all the hard work I put in just kind of finally paid off tonight and really excited to keep going after this one."
Keller’s success came with the pitch that had been causing him problems this year: The fastball. More specifically, the high fastball.
This has been a point of development with new pitching coach Oscar Marin. Like many of the Pirates’ pitchers before Marin was hired, the Pirates had Keller work down in the zone more during his development and debut season in 2019. He gets good spin on his fastball, though, so Marin wanted him to throw it higher more. Ideally, batters would have a hard time hitting that pitch and his breaking balls would play better off of it.
That’s what happened Saturday, especially the former.
That Bryant double would be the only hit the Cubs would get off his heater. Of the 42 fastballs he threw, eight were whiffed at, nine were fouled off and 10 were called strikes. Mixing in the three balls in play, Keller only threw 12 balls with his fastball all game, one-third of which came in that first at-bat to Happ.
Keller struck out seven batters over his five innings of one-run ball – Shelton had him on a 75 pitch count and he finished with 80. Five of those punchouts came on high heat.
After his first start of the season, Keller said that he and Marin had been watching video, trying to zero in on things to work on.
"Not anything alarming or anything like that, just getting into a rhythm and executing fastballs at the top of the zone.,” Keller said. “I mean, just kind of struggling there for a while. Finding where the release point was and being able to execute where I wanted to. Tonight, I really executed the top of the zone like the plan was."
Something seemed to click in his side sessions leading up to this start. Keller didn’t have that consistent release point for his fastball towards the end of last year or in spring training.
BASEBALL SAVANT.
Most of his misses in Florida were either high or low with too much run, signs that the ball isn't leaving the hand at the right spot.
However, on Saturday, his release point was much tighter:
BASEBALL SAVANT
Shelton also saw some better mechanics with his lower half as the game progressed.
“I think he stayed in line a little bit better,” Shelton said. “That first hitter, it looked like he over-rotated a little bit and he had been doing that in previous starts, and I think he just did a nice job with his direction.”
The result: Keller’s first win at PNC Park.
That may be a bit misleading, though. Keller only had seven other home starts in his career, and he had pitched well in them (3.27 ERA). Small sample sizes at work, which can be easy to forget since he's been in the majots a couple years now, technically.
“Although this is Mitch’s third season in the big leagues, parts of third season, he doesn’t have a ton of experience yet,” Jacob Stallings said before the game. “He got hurt last year. So I think it’s just him getting the confidence in his stuff and learning how it plays. I’ve said this before, but whenever you can learn from your failures and your successes, I think that’s when you make your most growth as a player.”
Keller hit that roadblock, but Saturday was a sign that he has grown as a pitcher from it, both mechanically and mentally. That’s the type of maturation that could make their 2021 season successful, regardless of how many games they win or lose.
“I was super confident out there tonight.,” Keller said. “I thought I did a pretty good job of not letting the first inning run get to me. I knew I made my pitch and he got it.. I was just going to keep rolling with that mentality out there."
JOE SARGENT / GETTY
MORE FROM THE GAME
• The bats broke out of their funk in the second inning. Colin Moran got the rally started with a walk, and capped the scoring with a two-out, two-run single to right to make it 7-1. Stallings opened the scoring with a bases loaded single, and Adam Frazier and Bryan Reynolds drove in a combined three runs on back-to-back two-out doubles.
"We had consistent at-bats," Shelton said. "We had a couple walks in there. We really didn't get outside of our approach, which was nice to see, and I think that's why the inning was able to maintain and lengthen out [the rally]."
Moran went 2-for-3 with a pair of walks, which improved his season slash line to .321/.441/.607, and drew praise from his manager.
"He is having our best at-bats and most consistent at-bats, or one of the two guys that's having our most consistent at-bats," Shelton said. "He's not really going out of the hitting zone, and I think we've seen that throughout the first seven games."
• The second player Shelton was referring to was Phil Evans, who clubbed his third home run of the season in the sixth inning as part of his 2-for-4 night:
Evans has a 1.288 OPS this season, third-best in the National League. For a player who had to earn a job out of spring training and wasn't originally planned to be the everyday replacement for Ke'Bryan Hayes while he was on the injured list, Evans has made the most of every opportunity he has been given.
"I treat every day like it's a new day. I'm preparing for every position, wherever they want to put me out there," Evans said. "Knowing I'll get some more at-bats during Key's downtime, it's definitely confidence building me. Like I said, every day I'm coming to the ballpark with the same attitude, same mentality every night."
Saturday was special to Evans for another reason, too. His family was in town, and his brother, Michael, had never seen him play in the major leagues.
"It was awesome. After last season, having the fans there, having family in there, it was a special night, and I'm glad they were there to be a part of it."
• There were M-V-P chants for Evans in the eighth inning. Yes, a bit ironic given that it's early April, but the crowd was into this one, and Shelton took notice.
"They were obviously in the game. That was kind of cool. The other night we didn't let them in the game, opening night, but tonight they were really in it."
• The Pirates' six-game losing streak has been snapped, coming one day after the extremely rare Friday off-day.
"That first week on the road just blended in with our six week spring training, so it was nice getting home and just exhale," Evans said. "Taking an off-day to kind of regroup, and hopefully we take off from here."
• Factoid of the night: On a strikeout pitch to Jason Heyward to end the fourth, Keller hit 97.5 mph. That was harder than any pitch he threw last season.
THE ESSENTIALS
Boxscore
Video Highlights
Scoreboard
Standings
Statistics
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
Adam Frazier, 2B
Phillip Evans, 3B
Bryan Reynolds, LF
Colin Moran, 1B
Erik Gonzalez, SS
Gregory Polanco, RF
Jacob Stallings, C
Anthony Alford, CF
Mitch Keller, P
And for David Ross' Cubs:
Ian Happ, CF
Willson Contreras, C
Anthony Rizzo, 1B
Kris Bryant, 3B
Joc Pederson, LF
Javier Báez, SS
Jason Heyward, RF
David Bote, 2B
Zach Davies, P
THE SCHEDULE
The Pirates are going to get another crack at winning a series against the Cubs Sunday afternoon. JT Brubaker (0-0, 2.25) will get the nod, facing his former teammate, Trevor Williams (1-0, 3.00). First pitch is scheduled for 1:05 p.m. Derek Shelton will speak to the media at 11 a.m.
THE CONTENT
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