PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Mitch Keller said striking out the first three batters of the game hours after not being named to the All-Star Game had no correlation. Whether it was really motivation or not, Keller showed again why he believed he was deserving in an 8-2 Pirates win over the Mets on Monday.
“I would say that puts an exclamation point on my sentence yesterday,” said Pirates manager Derek Shelton, who said on Sunday before the All-Star roster announcement that Keller should have been on the team. “That was an all-star performance.”
"Yeah, absolutely,” All-Star Bryan Reynolds said of Keller showing his abilities. “I think he easily could have been in the (all-star) game, and hopefully he's still going to get put in. But yeah, he looked awesome."
“After yesterday, just flushed it,” Keller said. “Nothing I can do about it. Super happy for Paul (Skenes) and Reynolds, they both deserve it. So yeah, I flushed it after yesterday, Had one day to be disappointed about it.”
“I mean, it sucks when you don't get the chance to go, but there's literally nothing I can do about it. Not gonna worry about it.”
“He’s got 10 wins before the break with another start, eight innings,” Shelton said. “He made one bad pitch in eight innings and it was hot and he had to sit through two long innings. If that’s not an all-star, I’m hard pressed to see what is.”
While not an all-star on the field for the National League next week, Keller is for his team. He has twice as many wins as any Pirates starter, leads them with 102 strikeouts while making 18 starts with a 3.40 ERA and 1.22 WHIP.
“That’s the leader of a staff,” Shelton said. “That’s what a guy that leads a staff, that’s what he does. That’s what a guy that pitches Opening Day does. That’s what a guy that in my mind is an all-star does”.
“I would assume he was disappointed that he didn’t make the team. I didn’t assume that because I talked with him. He was disappointed because he deserved to make the team. To be able to bounce back and do what, especially after last night, that was a tough loss last night. We were a strike away from the game ending. To bounce back and do what he did today is a testament to how much we’ve seen Mitch grow over the last couple of years.”
"I think you see it every fifth or sixth day whenever he takes the mound,” said Pirates two-time All-Star David Bednar. “It's impressive how he's able to just command a game. He always keeps us in the game. He's a true leader of that staff, and it's really impressive to watch."
"He's been great,” Reynolds said.
“He's been dependable, that's the biggest thing, just been dependable. Count on him, know what you're going to get."
“We got a really good pitching staff and I think he’s the leader of it,” said first baseman Rowdy Tellez. “His ability to show up every single day, just remembering playing against him knowing that he didn’t miss a start. It shows durability. His ability to be present every day.”
“When you get him on the mound, you know what you are getting every day. He leads by example for the younger players.”
Keller said he had a number of teammates talk to him about how he deserved to be in the mid-summer classic.
“It definitely makes you feel a lot better,” Keller said. “Just from everyone that you're with all the time, when they recognize that, those words carry a lot of weight, especially when you're here day in and day out with everybody for over half the year. Yeah, it means a lot, for sure.”
He means a lot to his team as once again he picks up the group and leads them to a win after two tough losses.
Whether others realize his value or not.
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