Pirates bullpen blows Mitch Keller's 6-inning no-hit gem vs. Cardinals

Of all their pitcher-catcher conversations, Jacob Stallings never mentioned to Mitch Keller through six scoreless innings that the St. Louis Cardinals had failed to get a hit off the Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander.

“I did not say a word about the no-hitter,” Stallings said. “Maybe I should have. Maybe it would have turned out differently for us.”

The Cardinals couldn’t hit Keller, so they took it out on the bullpen.

The Pirates wasted Keller’s gem and a four-run lead in unbelievable fashion, as the Cardinals batted around in a five-run seventh with three walks, two batters hit by pitches and three hits on their way to a 5-4 victory Saturday night at PNC Park.

It was the second consecutive game the Cardinals used a late-inning rally to beat the Pirates, after scoring six runs in the sixth inning for a 7-2 victory in the second game of a doubleheader sweep on Friday night. To see Keller’s shutout evaporate in the seventh was one of those moments where you had to be there to believe it, so the Pirates could only take solace that the game was played before an empty ballpark because of coronavirus concerns.

“It wasn’t easy to watch,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “It looked like we went from 4-0 to 5-4 really quick. We didn’t execute. If we don’t execute, we’re going to put ourselves in those positions.”

Then again, Pirates fans missed the best performance of Keller’s major league career. The team has long touted Keller’s pitch repertoire as top-of-the-rotation stuff, and he looked the part in relying heavily upon a four-seam fastball that touched 97 mph mixed with a slider against right-handed hitters and a curveball to Yadier Molina.

“It was awesome,” Pirates third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes said. “It reminds me of just playing with him in the minor leagues, just seeing him go up there and shove. He had a no-hitter going. I wish he could have kept going, but he wasn’t able to. Yeah, it was really fun watching him throw.”

After allowing two walks and hitting a batter in the first two innings, Keller retired the final 14 batters he faced. He finished with six strikeouts, throwing 52 of his 84 pitches for strikes. On Sept. 14 in Cincinnati, his first start since coming off the injured list with an oblique strain, Keller only threw 65 pitches over three innings, giving up three runs on two hits and four walks in a 9-4 loss to the Reds.

It was after that game that Keller told Shelton, “I found it in the third inning.”

Keller was talking about his four-seam fastball, which he threw 52 times against the Cardinals, often up in the zone for strikes. But Shelton said there was a “hard-and-fast cap” on Keller’s pitch count, so he didn’t think twice about leaving him in the game to continue the no-hitter, especially when he couldn’t go the distance.

“Mitch Keller is way too important to the Pittsburgh Pirates,” Shelton said of the risk. “For him to go seven innings of a no-hitter, no, it’s not worth it. The pitch count is what we talked about before the game. We weren’t going to bounce off it.”

Keller’s timing couldn’t have been better, as the Pirates (15-37) were swept by the Cardinals in a doubleheader on Friday night and had lost 10 of 11 games.

The Pirates got off to a good start when Hayes hammered an 0-2 fastball 413 feet to dead center for his third home run, giving the Pirates a 1-0 lead. It was only the second homer allowed this season by Cardinals starter Kwang Hyun Kim, but it wouldn’t be the last. Jose Osuna lined a 2-2 curveball 371 feet down the left-field line for his second homer of the season and a 2-0 lead in the third. Osuna’s first homer also came against the Cardinals, in the 5-1 win July 26 at Busch Stadium that marked Shelton’s first as an MLB manager.

The Pirates added two more runs in the bottom of the sixth. Hayes hit a leadoff double and scored on Colin Moran’s single through the middle, and Erik Gonzalez scored on a sacrifice fly to center by Jacob Stallings to stretch the lead to 4-0.

Then the Pirates fell apart. Geoff Hartlieb replaced Keller and promptly loaded the bases by walking Brad Miller and Paul DeJong and hitting Yadier Molina with a pitch. Molina left the game with a left wrist contusion.

Hartlieb got the hook, but Sam Howard gave up a two-run double to Tyler O’Neill down the left-field line, and a sacrifice fly to Dylan Carlson made it 4-3. Howard then hit Harrison Bader to put runners on the corners, and Kolten Wong singled past second baseman Kevin Newman to tie it at 4-4. Tommy Edman hit a liner past shortstop Erik Gonzalez to score Bader, who easily beat Adam Frazier’s throw from left for a 5-4 lead.

“Hartlieb’s obviously been so good for us all year. When you walk two guys and hit a guy, you’re kind of setting yourself up for a tough inning,” Stallings said. “Then Sam came in and they found some holes. … It’s just one of those things, I guess, one of those innings.”

Shelton pulled Howard (2-3), who took the loss after giving up two runs on three hits and left runners on second and third with one out for Chris Stratton. After walking Paul Goldschmidt to load the bases, Stratton struck out Miller and got DeJong to fly to center for the final out of the seventh.

The Pirates got a scare in the ninth when Newman was hit on the outside of his left knee with a 97 mph fastball by reliever Genesis Cabrera. Newman limped off the field with assistance. JT Riddle pinch ran for him, but was forced out at second base when Frazier hit into a game-ending double play.

It wasn’t the ending the Pirates wanted, or the one Keller’s performance deserved.

“It sucks,” Keller said. “You just want to win the game, and we’re all out there competing. … It’s just baseball, it happens. It’s not that big of a deal to me. Wins, losses, doesn’t matter. I just really want to see our guys do well.”