Fastball

Pittsburgh Pirates' Pitcher Mitch Keller Makes Team History on the Mound

With the Pirates having lost nine of their last 10 games, Mitch Keller took the mound and delivered a historic performance against the Baltimore Orioles.

Brady Farkas

Pittsburgh Pirates' Pitcher Mitch Keller Makes Team History on the Mound
Pittsburgh Pirates' Pitcher Mitch Keller Makes Team History on the Mound /
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The Pittsburgh Pirates had lost nine of their last 10 games heading into Sundays tilt with the Baltimore Orioles.

In fact, it had been so bad recently for the Pirates that we recently wrote about the history-making performance of the offense.... on the negative side of things.

Insert starting pitcher Mitch Keller, who delivered a historically good outing against the O's.

Per ESPN Stats & Info:

Mitch Keller stymied the Orioles today, becoming the first Pirates pitcher with 13 strikeouts, no walks and no runs allowed in an outing in the Live-Ball Era (since 1920)

Any time you do something that hasn't been done in at least 100 years, that's impressive. Keller was exactly what the Pirates needed and his performance led Pittsburgh to a 4-0 win. He went seven innings, allowing just four hits to go along with those 13 strikeouts.

He's now 5-1 on the season and lowered his ERA for the season to 2.38. For his career, he's 17-30 with a 4.62 ERA but after earning the Opening Day start for Pittsburgh this year, he appears to have turned a corner in his career.

Offensively, four runs isn't great -- but it represents a major upgrade for the Bucs, who had been shutout three times in their last 12 games. Pittsburgh scored runs via a Carlos Santanta fielders choice, a Ji Hwan Bae single and a Ke'Bryan Hayes single.

Pittsburgh is now 22-19 and will be off Monday before going to Detroit to take on the Tigers on Tuesday.

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Brady Farkas
BRADY FARKAS

Brady Farkas is a baseball writer for Fastball on Sports Illustrated/FanNation and the host of 'The Payoff Pitch' podcast which can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Videos on baseball also posted to YouTube. Brady has spent nearly a decade in sports talk radio and is a graduate of Oswego State University. You can follow him on Twitter @WDEVRadioBrady. 

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