Miguel Cabrera serves as catalyst for Tigers, who prevent Pirates from series sweep

Mitch Keller remains an enigma for the Pittsburgh Pirates, as the right-hander followed his best start of this rollercoaster season by surrendering double-digit hits to the Detroit Tigers.

There is no mystery to Miguel Cabrera. On the day of the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony, the Detroit Tigers first baseman showed why he’s ticketed for Cooperstown.

Cabrera was the catalyst for the Tigers in a 5-1 win over the Pirates, going 4 for 4 with a double and three RBIs Wednesday night before an announced crowd of 8,382 at PNC Park.

For the ninth time this season, the Pirates (50-90) failed to win the final game of a series that would have clinched a sweep. They remain the only team in baseball to not sweep an opponent this season.

“I don’t put a whole lot of stock into it. It’s not really something that consumes much of my thoughts,” Pirates catcher Jacob Stallings said. “It just hasn’t worked out. More of what is frustrating is our overall won-loss record. When you have a bad record, it’s hard to sweep a team.”

The Pirates had no solution to stop Cabrera and Robbie Grossman, who went 4 for 5 with a home run. The Tigers’ Nos. 3 and 4 batters accounted for eight of their 12 hits and four of their five RBIs.

After pitching six scoreless innings against the Chicago Cubs on Sept. 2, Keller (4-11) allowed four runs on 10 hits with one walk and six strikeouts in five innings. He got out of jams in the third and fourth but ran into trouble in the two-run fifth, giving up a one-out walk followed by three consecutive singles.

Neither Pirates manager Derek Shelton nor Keller believe it was a continuation of the good start-bad start pattern the right-hander showed early this season, which prompted his demotion to Triple-A Indianapolis. Shelton said he felt like Keller threw his fastball, slider and curveball well but could have had better execution in certain situations.

“From where he’s come from, I think we would rather him be in the zone too much right now, because of the fact that he did continue to attack, he did continue to execute,” Shelton said. “My feeling on it is, Mitch earlier in the year a couple of those innings, we would have seen bad pitch, then that would have turned into a four-run inning. He was able to minimize damage. I think that’s definitely a sign of growth.”

The Pirates can blame Cabrera. He registered three hits with an exit velocity of 100 mph or higher, taking Keller’s four-seam fastball for a ride in both the first (103.6 mph) and third (101.7) innings. When Keller changed it up and threw him a curveball in the fifth, Cabrera hit a line drive to left field that was clocked at a game-best 108.2 mph.

“I marvel at him a lot,” Shelton said. “I think I’ve said it numerous times in the last three days. He’s the best right-handed hitter I’ve ever seen. He had good swings. Tonight, we didn’t make bad pitches to him. I think he hit everything. He hit the fastball up. He hit a fastball in. He hit a curveball 0-0, and he hit a cutter for four hits. That shows you why he’s such a good hitter.”

The 38-year-old slugger, who became the 28th player in major league history to hit 500 home runs on Aug. 23, recorded hits in his final seven at bats against the Pirates and is now 29 hits shy of joining the 3,000-hit club.

“He’s an incredible hitter. Hats off to him,” Keller said. “He’s gonna be in the Hall of Fame.”

The Tigers (66-75) took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Robbie Grossman singled to left and scored on Cabrera’s double off the Clemente Wall in right field.

Ben Gamel started the second with a double to the North Side Notch, advanced to third on Cole Tucker’s flyout to deep left-center and scored on Kevin Newman’s grounder through the left side of the infield to tie it.

The Tigers took the lead in the third, when Cabrera hit a two-out single to score Akil Baddoo to make it 2-1. In the bottom of the third, however, the Tigers lost starting pitcher Matt Manning to a left knee contusion.

Manning took a Colin Moran comebacker off his leg that richochted to catcher Dustin Garneau, who threw Moran out at first for the final out. Manning went down before limping off the field and didn’t return after allowing one run on four hits with four strikeouts.

That put Tigers right-hander Drew Hutchison (1-1) – a former Pirates pitcher who was acquired in the Francisco Liriano trade to Toronto – in position to earn the win after pitching two scoreless innings in relief.

Cabrera struck again in the fourth, hitting his third consecutive RBI single to score Jonathan Schoop for a 3-1 Tigers lead. Jeimer Candelario singled through the middle to score Grossman to make it 4-1.

“In some situations, I thought I made pretty good pitches and balls found holes and just didn’t go my way,” Keller said. “But, looking back, I told Stallings after I got taken out, ‘I don’t think I’d change anything that we did tonight.’ We executed our game plan, and things just didn’t go our way.”

Grossman hit his 22nd home run in the seventh inning off Cody Ponce to give the Tigers a 5-1 lead, one the Pirates couldn’t overcome.

“We just really couldn’t get Grossman or Miggy out today,” Stallings said. “That’s how they got most of their runs. They got some traffic before and after those guys but we just couldn’t get those two guys out.”