Mitch Keller took the loss for the Pittsburgh Pirates on Saturday afternoon, giving him a league-leading 10 losses for the season. The Pirates are additionally simply 3-13 in his first 16 begins, whereas he owns a person file of simply 1-10.
With numbers like that, it is perhaps simple to return to the conclusion that Keller is having a dreadful season and probably not giving his crew an opportunity to win.
That would not be farther from the reality.
He is really having a extremely robust season and is perhaps the largest tough-luck loser within the league.
He went 5.2 innings in Saturday’s 3-2 loss, permitting simply two earned runs and decreasing his ERA on the season to a really respectable 4.02. It is not nice. Nevertheless it’s not terrible. He is just about a assured high quality begin (or near it) each time he takes the mound and nearly all the time offers his crew an opportunity to win.
He has pitched into the sixth inning in 13 of his 16 begins, allowed three earned runs or much less in 13 of his 16 begins and his 11 high quality begins. He’s considered one of simply eight starters to have no less than 11 this season, whereas no one has recorded greater than 12.
Only for comparability’s sake on what a crew’s file ought to appear to be with these kind of numbers, listed below are the crew information (and particular person information in parentheses) of the eight starters to file no less than 11 high quality begins this season.
Max Fried, New York Yankees: 12-4 (9-2)
Logan Webb, San Francisco Giants: 9-7 (7-5)
Paul Skenes, Pittsburgh Pirates: 8-8 (4-6)
Zack Wheeler, Philadelphia Phillies: 11-4 (7-2)
Mitch Keller, Pittsburgh Pirates: 3-13 (1-10)
Framber Valdez, Houston Astros: 10-5 (8-4)
Spencer Schwellenbach, Atlanta Braves: 9-6 (5-4)
Hunter Brown, Houston Astros: 11-4 (8-3)
Let’s crunch some numbers on this.
Keller and his teammate, Paul Skenes, are the one two pitchers on this checklist who do not need particular person profitable information or crew profitable information of their begins.
Mixed, the Pirates are 11-21 when Skenes and Keller begin (a .343 profitable share), regardless of them being two of essentially the most constant pitchers within the league and all the time giving them an opportunity. Individually, Skenes and Keller are simply 5-16 by way of their very own win-loss information.
The opposite pitchers on this checklist have mixed for a person file of 44-20, whereas their groups are 62-30 (a .673 profitable share).
Pitchers this good and manufacturing should not have information this unhealthy, and it’s a testomony to the dearth of offense and run help the Pirates give. As unhealthy because it has been for Skenes at instances, it has been even worse for Keller.
