MILWAUKEE -- Until his latest start, Mitch Keller's season had been defined by an oxymoron: A pattern of inconsistency.
But things reached their breaking point Saturday, and now he'll get the opportunity to sort things out in the minor leagues. Hoping this retreat can eventually move him forward.
The Pirates optioned Keller to Class AAA Indianapolis, Derek Shelton announced before the game against the Brewers at American Family Field. It was a move that the organization had held off on making for quite some time.
"It’s a challenging move. It’s a tough move but it’s a move that’s important for both Mitch and the Pirates," Shelton said in a pregame Zoom call Saturday. "We need to get him in a situation where he’s commanding the fastball better, he’s doing things that are making him an effective big league pitcher. We really feel he’s going to be a good big league pitcher but we’ve got to put him in a situation to do that.”
The Pirates also had to put Trevor Cahill back on the injured list after an aggravation of his left calf injury. Wil Crowe and Geoff Hartlieb have been recalled in their place. Crowe is expected to start the series finale in Milwaukee on Sunday.
After Keller's latest disastrous outing against the Dodgers at PNC Park on Thursday, Shelton said that the club hadn't considered a move to the minors or the bullpen for Keller. Michael Perez caught Keller in this game. He stood by his teammate's abilities when asked about it on the field, but didn't offer up much of a critique to team interpreter Mike Gonzalez.
Ke'Bryan Hayes has neighbored Keller on the Pirates' prospect rankings for the better part of a decade. Their simultaneous emergence could have been counted on as the first step toward a new day at PNC Park.
Hayes hadn't known about the move and was fairly surprised when I broke the news to him during batting practice. But he wasn't shocked.
"From what I've seen, the biggest thing that I feel like that he's wanting to work on was his fastball command," said Hayes, who has seen Keller in the minors when they were first teammates in 2016. "Whenever his fastball command is there, and the ball has life on it good things happen for him. I think that's the first thing that he's wanted to get a better hold on."
Shelton insisted that the organization still has faith that Keller will be an effective major-league pitcher, but the move indicates that there needs to be a better plan mapped out for the 25-year-old right-hander.
"We have lost no faith in Mitch Keller," the skipper said. "That’s a total fallacy. We have complete faith in Mitch Keller."
Keller entered the weekend with a 7.14 ERA and 51 strikeouts over his first 12 starts of the season, during which he completed just 47 1/3 innings. He expressed his supreme frustration after that ugly start against the Dodgers, but he'll have a chance to figure things out with Joel Hanrahan in Indianapolis.
"He’s frustrated because he knows he’s a good pitcher and he knows he has really good stuff," Shelton said. "And right now, the work he’s doing is not translating into games. And it’s our responsibility to help with that translation."
