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Mitch Keller is Named International League Pitcher of the Week

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On Monday morning, the International League named Mitch Keller as their Pitcher of the Week. Keller started on Thursday night and threw six shutout innings on two hits, with three walks and eight strikeouts against Columbus in the first game back from the All-Star break.

In this game, Keller went to his breaking pitches early and often. While I didn’t keep an exact count, the rough estimate from watching the entire start was 45 fastballs, 30 curves and 25 sliders. His changeup appeared to have been used just once, thrown against former teammate Max Moroff, which resulted in a fly ball to center field.

Keller leads the International League with a 3.07 ERA, which is 54 points lower than the second best mark in the league. He has a 1.28 WHIP, which ranks third in the league, as well as 96 strikeouts, which has him six behind the league leader.

This is his second Pitcher of the Week award this season, winning for the first time back in late April.

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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