Morning Rundown: Pirates shutdown Mitch Keller for last start of 2023 season
Was scheduled to pitch on the last game of the season.
There was really only one other thing that Mitch Keller could do to cap off his 2023 season.
He made the All-Start team, more than doubled his career win total, and set the franchise record for single season strikeouts by right-handed pitchers.
The only thing left was to hit the 200 innings mark, which he was just 5.2 innings away from doing so, and originally was in line to start the final game of the regular season against the Miami Marlins.
But it seems the Pirates are proceeding on the side of caution, and shutting down Keller, ending his 2023 season.
There was a little bit of a scare in his last outing, but he claimed to be fine after the game.
It was a little bit of a tale of two halves for Keller, as he posted a 3.34 ERA from March-June, followed up by a mark of 5.23 afterwards.
Regardless, Keller took another step into being the workhorse the Pirates needed. Despite getting beat up on multiple occasions in the second half, Keller pitched at least five innings in each of his starts.
Still, Keller finished the year with a 3.71 xFIP, 18th among qualified starting pitchers, and a 3.2 WAR (on FanGraphs, 22nd).
There isn’t much guaranteed when it comes to the rotation next year, Keller may be the lone exception, with Johan Oviedo probably not too far behind him.
Jared Triolo with two more extra-base hits
In the 15 games since Triolo has rejoined the Pirates, he has picked up 18 hits, eight of which have gone for extra-base hits.
If there is one hesitation it would be an incredibly high .430 BABIP, but he had a similar mark this year in the minors and even in years prior it’s been a little higher than average (.346 career mark).
Long-term I’m not sure what his best role on the team is, something on the super-utility side would probably maximize his value, but whatever it is - he’s going to play in the majors doing so.
Key series coming up for TBD. This is his chance to get a leg up on a spot, or two, or three in next year’s rotation.
With the current situation of the Pirate Rotation, I am glad to see them opt to not push our #1 Starter into a totally meaningless game on the last game of the season. The others in the race for the final Wild Card slot will probably not be fans of that decision, but he has already exceeded his number of IP in 2022 (159) by about 35 innings.
Hard to find a hole in Jared Triolo's game, and his defense all over the infield assures that he will easily be a high fWAR player each year. Nice decision last year to add him to the 40, avoiding exposure to the Rule 5 Draft, and that decision has paid dividends in 2023.