Mitch Keller Closing in on Milestone, Pirates’ History (+)
The career-turnaround for Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Mitch Keller has been a sight to see over the last year and a half or so.
The former top prospect’s early-career struggles have been well documented, but Keller has turned a corner with the Pirates dating back to last May.
Sine his outing on May 31 last season, Keller is 16-16 with a 3.71 ERA across 52 starts. This comes after Keller had a 6.03 ERA in his career prior to his upswing.
Keller was rewarded for his resiliency by being named a National League All-Star this season for the first time in his career.
Now, Keller is closing in on a season milestone and is getting closer to making a little bit of Pirates’ history.
Keller is currently 10th in baseball and ranks sixth in the National League in 2023 with 198 strikeouts on the year.
What’s led to the impressive strikeout totals? Keller’s manager has an idea.
“I think the fastball. When we saw him go away and have the inconsistent starts for about two or three weeks, it was lack of fastball execution,” Derek Shelton said. “Early in the year, we probably saw fastball execution about as good as it was in the game on both sides. I think he’s done a nice job getting back to it.”
He’s only two strikeouts away from 200, and he would become the first Pirates’ pitcher to hit 200 strikeouts in a season since Gerrit Cole struck out 202 batters during the 2015 season.
That season with the Pirates, Cole finished the year 19-8 with a 2.60 ERA and was fourth in the National League Cy Young race. Like Keller in 2023, Cole was an All-Star for the first time that season.
While Keller’s overall numbers don’t stack up to Cole’s stellar 2015 campaign, it’s still been quite a year for the current Pirates’ No. 1.
In a career-high 30 starts this season, Keller is 12-9 with a 4.04 ERA and has a complete game shutout on his record after a brilliant performance against the Colorado Rockies in May.
As Keller is about to eclipse 200 strikeouts on the season, in all likelihood coming in his next start, he can look towards setting a new franchise record for right-handed pitchers.
The most strikeouts ever recorded by a Pirates’ right-hander is the 209 punch outs recorded by A.J. Burnett in 2013. Burnett led the league with 9.8 strikeouts per nine innings that season and finished 5th in the league in total strikeouts.
Keller needs only 11 more punch outs to tie Burnett’s record and a dozen to break it, and he has a pretty solid chance of doing so.
With 11 games left in the season, Keller is in line to make two or three more starts, depending on how the Pirates use him, before the season comes to a close. In 20 of his 30 starts this season, the right-hander has struck out at least six batters.
Whether Keller is able to break Burnett’s record this year may or may not happen. But if it does, it would be the cherry on top to quite a season for him.
Here is the Pirates’ all-time single-season strikeout leaderboard (dating back to 1900):
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