Gameday 122: Mitch Keller Looks To Help The Pirates Tie Series Against Twins
After an encouraging start last time out, Mitch Keller will look to help the Pirates even their weekend series against the Twins
It hasn’t been the best stretch of games for Mitch Keller, including posting an ERA of over six in the month of July.
While it carried into the first start of August, it looks like he’s slowly starting to right the ship.
He will take the mound for the Pittsburgh Pirates as they try to take game two of a three game set against the Minnesota Twins.
Endy Rodriguez continues to flash the hit tool that made him one of the best prospects in baseball, picking up his second three-hit game of his early career.
Although he got tagged with the loss, Andre Jackson looked good with the Pirates, and continues to make a case to remain in the ‘rotation’ currently. He allowed two runs on four hits and three walks across 4.1 innings, while striking out six.
Ji-Hwan Bae returned to the lineup and picked up a pair of hits, one of which being a double.
Saturday’s game has an expected first pitch time of 7:10 PM ET.
Recent Articles
This morning’s rundown took a look at Ji-Hwan Bae returning to the Pirates at the expense of Jared Triolo and we got an injury update on Termarr Johnson.
Today’s feature takes a look at Aaron Shortridge, who leads the Pirates’ system in innings pitched this year and how he’s gotten stronger as the season has gone on.
NolaJeffy did a little deep dive on some fastball pitching analytics, mainly Vertical Approach Angle (VAA) and how it pertained to some of the pitchers on the Pirates.
Pitching Matchup
PIT - Mitch Keller (9-8, 4.27 ERA)
MIN - Sonny Gray (6-5, 3.04 ERA)
Pirates Lineup
2B - Ji-Hwan Bae
LF - Bryan Reynolds
DH - Andrew McCutchen
3B - Ke’Bryan Hayes
RF - Josh Palacios
1B - Connor Joe
CF - Jack Suwinski
SS - Liover Peguero
C - Jason Delay
You have to give Bae credit for scoring on Hayes' hit. That ball was a laser. VERY few guys score on that. Well, he has 96th percentile sprint speed, per StatCast, so four out of 100 probably.
Amazing stuff in the Bradenton game. In a tie game, the Marauders made four outs on the bases in the seventh and eighth innings. Not one of them was anywhere close. In case you're wondering what's producing the quality of baseball we see in Pgh.
The one difference is the Marauders managed to get two runs anyway.