Blow Up Innings Spoil Mitch Keller’s Early Success Vs. Astros

After a lengthy rain delay on Thursday night, Mitch Keller took the mound for the Pittsburgh Pirates and retired nine of the first ten Houston Astros he faced. His first time through the Astros’ order, he struck out three hitters and needed just 25 pitches to navigate the first three innings.

The Astros rolled out a lefty-heavy lineup against Keller, due to Keller’s struggles with left-handed hitters. Keller was able to jump ahead of hitters with his fastball, finding himself down in the count just twice through three innings.

Following three shutout frames, things took a turn for Keller in the fourth. He began the inning by hanging a sweeper to Isaac Paredes, who deposited it into the left field seats. The right-hander continued to get ahead of hitters, but couldn’t convert the advantageous counts into outs at the same rate he did the first time through the order. He issued a two-out walk to Jake Meyers and failed to put away both Cam Smith and Jacob Melton after getting ahead 0-2, leading to a four-run fourth inning.

Keller settled down in the fifth and sixth innings, keeping the Astros off the board, but ran into trouble again in the seventh. It’s fair to wonder if Keller should have been removed from the game after six innings. He entered the seventh inning at just 79 pitches, but his start was delayed by almost three hours due to the rain. He also showed signs of fatigue as his fastball velocity started to fall off as the game progressed.

Keller was pulled after allowing two hits in the seventh, leaving a runner on second base. That runner later came around to score.

While Keller’s final line wasn’t pretty, six earned runs over 6 1/3 innings pitched, there were things to build on. His four-seam fastball returned three whiffs on 24 pitches, an above-average rate. His sweeper performed well when it was kept on the edges, and he showed a harder curveball that came through for four whiffs. Strong strike throwing put Keller in good situations, but a few too many mistakes with two strikes ultimately proved costly.

Keller also turned to his sinker more often later in the game, which wasn’t as effective as the four-seam. His four-seam fastball has performed well against righties thus far this season. While throwing two fastballs is valuable, I’d like to see him challenge hitters with his four-seamer more often going forward.

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