Keller’s switch to the sinker pays dividends in obvious, less obvious ways

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — You can draw an easy line to split Mitch Keller’s season into two parts.

Everything before May 31 was the Keller of old, leaning on a four-seam fastball that wasn’t fooling anybody and getting hit hard. Everything after that is Keller with a sinker, and he has a 2.96 ERA inhis five starts using the new pitch, with 23 strikeouts in 27⅓innings.

So far, it’s changed just about everything for Keller the pitcher. He now has a more competitive heater on which he can establish the rest of his arsenal.

It’s also changed everything in how he feels on and offthe mound right now.

“Last year, I’d just get more frustrated as it would go on, like, ‘ Why wasn’t I doing better? Why wasn’t I getting results?’ ” Keller said. “I think I was hanging my head on those questions. Just kind of turning it around this year, just trying to make good things happen instead of worrying about what already happened.”

Youcan see that in multiple ways.

For one, Keller has been able to snap back into form on the mound more easily. Take Friday night’s 4-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays: Keller was forced to throw 37 pitches in the second inning, with a weak single and a balk extending the frame.

It’s the kind of inning that might have derailed a start for Keller last season. In this one, he went into the dugout, refocused and fired two straight 12-3 innings in the third and fourth.

Off the field, Keller has been a bit cheerier, too. To be sure, a large part of Keller’s improved mood this season hasto do with the results. It’s a lot easier to be cheery with success. But players will tell you it can be a never-ending cycle. Think positively, play better. Play better, think more positively.

“We definitely have a good group of guys here, which helps,” Keller said. “It makes everybody feel welcome, not that no one was welcome [last year]. We’re all just a group of good dudes, and it’s really cool to add young guys with confidence and older guys with confidence.”

In other words, things are going smoothly for Keller right now. Pirates fans have certainly heard that Keller has made a turnaround before. There have been countless times when he’s put together a good start or two and made some perk up a bit before ultimately falling backward again at some point.

Now, though, there’s a tangible difference to be believed, beyond body language or a catch-all “good stuff” qualification. That two-seam, which he’s thrown 196 times this season, has been put in play 42 times. Of those, just 11 have gone for hits, good for a .224 opponent batting average against the pitch. In comparison, opponents hit .304 against Keller’s four-seam.

And the confidence with just that pitch has grown demonstrably. When he first began throwing it, Keller admitted the movement was good enough for him to use it whenever, but he still didn’t feel like he could locate it at all times. On Friday, facing Yandy Diaz with two outs in the fifth, Keller worked his way into a 3-0 count. He then fired two straight two-seamers for called strikes on the inner half of the plate before eventually getting Diaz to fly outto right.

“I knew I could throw two sinkers for strikes and get myself back in the count and not really worry about too much damage being done on that pitch,” Keller said. “So it’s it’s ahuge pitch.”

In so many ways, Keller has flipped the script in both demeanor and execution.

Hayes mends

Ke ’Bryan Hayes met briefly with media Saturday for the first time since injuring his shoulder scoring the game-winning run against the Chicago Cubs on Thursday. Hesaid his shoulder felt better than it did the day before and he took ground balls at third before getting more treatment for his sore joint.

Hayes added that, on the play when he slid headfirst into the shin pads of Cubs catcher Willson Contreras, he realized at the last second that there was going to be a collision, but there was no time to bail out. It’s not clear when he’ll return to the lineup.