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AFL Recap: Mitch Keller Starts Fall-Stars Game

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The Arizona Fall League held their Fall-Stars game on Saturday night and Mitch Keller was the starting pitcher for the West team. Kevin Kramer would come into the game in the sixth inning. The East won 4-2.

Keller looked a little amped up to start the game, as he was a little wild and up in the zone the entire first inning. He walked two batters in the first and gave up an infield single to second base. The opposition stole three bases in three chances against him and that led to a run, but it was a combo of two issues. The catcher (Max Pentecost) had a chance to catch two of the runners but he bounced one throw and the other was well off-line on a play at third base. Keller also hasn’t been worrying about runners in the AFL. Runners were 19-for-31 against him during the regular season, which is slightly more steals than average, but a below average success rate, so he wasn’t bad at holding runners on during the season.

In the second inning, Keller really settled down and got two grounders back to him and a line out to right field to retire the side in order. He threw just 20 of his 38 pitches for strikes in his only two innings. Keller has been a dominating playoff pitcher, so I wouldn’t worry about him trying to do too much in big spots. He was also coming off of a five-inning outing on Monday in which he faced the minimum of 15 batters, with the only runner getting erased on a caught stealing. So if this was the first time you saw Keller, it wasn’t a great first look. The velocity was there, sitting 95-97, hitting 98 once. The curve wasn’t sharp and both changeups he threw were outside the zone.

Kevin Kramer was a defensive replacement in the bottom of the sixth. During the AFL season, he has only played shortstop, but he played second base on this day. In his only at-bat, he grounded out hard to first base. He didn’t have any chances in the field.

John Dreker
John Dreker
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball. When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.

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