Mitch Keller, the Pirates' top pitching prospect, will make his debut Monday night in Cincinnati, the second game of a day-night doubleheader.
Nick Kingham will start the first game, and the Tuesday and Wednesday starts will go to Jordan Lyles and Steven Brault.
Notice anything missing?
Right. The opener approach is off the table. For now, anyway.
"We're down two pitchers today, and we've got 18 innings to cover tomorrow," Clint Hurdle explained Sunday morning before the series finale against the Dodgers at PNC Park. "Let's worry about that first and see where it takes us."
Where that'll take them first, apparently, is using two of the worst pitchers in Major League Baseball -- Kingham has an 8.76 ERA in 11 appearances, Brault 7.11 in eight appearances -- against the Reds rather than going for outside reinforcements.
Asked about turning to those two yet again, Hurdle shrugged and replied, "We need to maximize our arms the best we can, to see if these guys can give us push-offs early. If not ... well, we’ll figure it out as we go along. But we want to go back and revisit giving them an opportunity to step forward. When they pitch well, it never hurts. But there comes a point where they need to pitch well to get opportunities to pitch.”
Neal Huntington sounded a similar note, saying, "It's time for guys to go out and take strides."
I asked Huntington to describe the effort being made to acquire outside pitching:
The formal announcement that Keller's being recalled from Class AAA Indianapolis came early Sunday afternoon, just before . Huntington's weekly radio show.
Keller, 23, was 5-0 for Indianapolis with a 3.48 ERA and 1.43 WHIP in nine starts, with 56 strikeouts and 20 walks. He struggled immensely in spring training, even beyond the three Grapefruit League appearances in which he was clubbed for 10 runs on 10 hits and three walks over four total innings.
When I mentioned to Hurdle that the results weren't always there for Keller in Bradenton, Hurdle laughed slightly and answered, "The results weren't there at all. It's all part of the experience, though. At the end of the day, nobody keeps spring training stats. It was a good experience for him to be in that camp, in that clubhouse, all the opportunities that come with that. And he's continued to learn as he's gone. Sometimes it's been easy. Sometimes it's been hard. But that's all part of your developmental curve. Everything's linear in this game."
The top priority for Keller, as Hurdle reaffirmed, was adding a third pitch -- Huntington calls it a "slider/cutter" -- to his high-90s fastball and dynamic curve. It's highly unusual for a starter to have only two pitches.
"Especially with the degree of difficulty some of the lineups at this level offer you," Hurdle said. "We've all talked about how difficult it can be to navigate through a lineup two or three times. If they've only got to hunt two pitches, it becomes that much more difficult to game-plan, to scheme. If you can add a third, a fourth pitch, you can create separation of velocities. That 10-mph, 12-mph difference off your fastball. All of it adds up to more deception, more weapons."
I asked Huntington why it took so long for Keller to develop a third pitch. His response was that Keller had also used a changeup through the minors but that he "took some hard lessons" with the pitch at the higher levels. The slider/cutter hasn't supplanted the changeup, he clarified, but it's become more reliable as an out pitch and for keeping hitters off his fastball and curve.
And how long might Keller stick around?
That isn't clear at all.
"He could be one and back to the minor leagues to continue to grow and develop, or he could get an extended opportunity," Huntington said. "He also may never go back."
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