Kevin Gorman: Miserable major-league debut fuels Mitch Keller to live up to expectations
BRADENTON, Fla.
Mitch Keller can’t put his finger on what went wrong in a miserable major league debut when he gave up six hits, including a grand slam, and surrendered six runs in the first inning of a Memorial Day massacre at Cincinnati.
It was painful to watch, even more excruciating to endure.
The next three innings, however, were invaluable to the Pittsburgh Pirates’ top prospect. The 6-foot-2, 210-pound right-hander allowed one hit, no runs and fanned five batters. It took awhile, but Keller showed he could get big-league hitters out.
“That was big for me,” Keller said. “Who knows where I’d have been if I was taken out in the first and didn’t get to go back out and get guys out? I would have gone back down to Triple-A wondering if I’d ever get back or could even get guys out. Just having those last three innings, I know I can do it.”
Now Keller has to prove it.
After going 1-5 with a 7.13 ERA and 1.83 WHIP in 11 starts last season, Keller came to spring training intent on earning a spot in the starting rotation. He lasted longer than five innings only once but is focusing on the positives: His average of 12.2 strikeouts per nine innings was the highest of any Pirates starter.
Pirates coaches and pitchers rave about Keller’s top-of-the-rotation stuff, especially his curveball and newly developed slider. But Keller has to show this spring he can be a dependable starter and not just a strikeout artist.
“I’m seeing that power-pitcher effect,” new pitching coach Oscar Marin said. “If we just refine a couple things, I think we can get him to where we want him to go.”
That’s something the Pirates couldn’t do for Tyler Glasnow, another power pitcher who dominated the minors but struggled in the majors only to find instant success after being traded to Tampa Bay. The Pirates can’t afford for another top pitching prospect to fall so short of expectations, especially with Jameson Taillon sidelined for the season after Tommy John surgery.
The good news is Keller wants to be the pitcher the Pirates need him to be, and he’s not shy about saying so.
“I have all the confidence in the world in myself that I can make the starting rotation,” Keller said, “and not only make it but help the team out and get some wins and have a lot of quality starts and make every start this year. That’s my goal.”
The 23-year-old Keller looked terrific Tuesday in his first live bullpen session of spring training at Pirate City, pitching with precision and confidence in a performance catcher Jacob Stallings called “impressive.”
“He’s been working on throwing fastballs up in the zone with his spin, and he did a really nice job of that,” Stallings said. “The ball was jumping, and his breaking balls were good, too. He was throwing everything for a strike. When Mitch has good command, that’s when he’s really hard to hit.”
In the minors, Keller relied heavily on his four-seam fastball and curveball. When he wasn’t able to blow away major league hitters with his heater and couldn’t control his command, Keller learned difficult lessons.
That’s why the development of a third pitch, the slider, into an above-average pitch will be critical to his success. He hasn’t found complete comfort with his changeup, so he had to find another way to complement his curveball and fastball.
Getting rocked by the Reds will force you to make changes.
“When you have experiences, you’re able to gauge yourself, especially against major league hitters,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “He does have elite stuff. If you watched a couple of the breaking balls he threw (in live batting practice), you’re not going to see those pitches in very many places.
“Experiences are good, whether they’re good experiences or bad experiences, because you can learn and grow from them.”
More than anything, Keller is taking the advice of his teammates to learn from every outing and use it to fuel the next. Pitcher Joe Musgrove pointed to Keller’s final start of the season, Sept. 24 against the Chicago Cubs at PNC Park, as proof of progress.
With two outs in the first, the Cubs loaded the bases on a Ben Zobrist single, Kyle Schwarber double and Willson Contreras walk. But Keller was able to strike out Ian Happ to end the inning and allowed one run in five innings of a 9-2 win.
“Seeing him turn the corner after the first inning and giving us five solid innings that we really needed at that time,” Musgrove said, “was huge.”
So were the lessons learned by Keller, who now has the experience to deal with the enormous expectations and is working to refine his elite stuff so he can live up to them.
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Kevin Gorman is a TribLive reporter covering the Pirates. A Baldwin native and Penn State graduate, he joined the Trib in 1999 and has covered high school sports, Pitt football and basketball and was a sports columnist for 10 years. He can be reached at kgorman@triblive.com.
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