Matheny on Keller’s First Start: ‘Everything We Were Hoping to See'
The Kansas City Royals are 2-0 on the season, and both of their wins over the Cleveland Guardians have involved good performances from the club's starters.
On Opening Day, it was Zack Greinke who turned back the clock with a 5-2/3 inning masterpiece. After an off day, Saturday's game saw Brad Keller toss six innings of high-quality baseball. Neither Royals starter got a win, but both played integral roles in the team's final outcome. For Keller, it was the best he'd looked in a while.
Jun 4, 2021; Kansas City, Missouri, USA; Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Brad Keller (56) delivers a pitch in the first inning against the Minnesota Twins at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
In six innings of ball, the 26-year-old surrendered just two hits and a walk. He struck out five batters and was precise all afternoon, mixing up his pitches and locating them to near-perfection. Keller's outing was a flashback to his final nine starts of last year, when he finally figured some things out after a rough few months and posted a 3.42 ERA in just under 53 innings. His dominance on Saturday didn't go unnoticed.
After Saturday's game, Royals manager Mike Matheny spoke about the team's walk-off victory. His topics ranged from Adalberto Mondesi's clutch hit, all the way to Bobby Witt Jr.'s athleticism and Collin Snider's big-league debut. He led off with Keller, though, praising his No. 2 starter for the job he did against a formidable opponent.
"I said it all spring: Brad looked like a different pitcher," Matheny said. "It was rhythm, it was control, it was making pitches, using all of his pitches including the changeup. He just set such a great tone and was so efficient and pounding the zone, getting ahead. That's everything we were hoping to see."
Jun 9, 2021; Anaheim, California, USA; Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Brad Keller (56) puts on his hat during the second inning against the Los Angeles Angels at Angel Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelvin Kuo-USA TODAY Sports
Keller indeed did use a wide range of pitches, although he needed just 69 of them to get through his six innings of nice work. Of those offerings, he threw 23 sliders, 21 four-seam fastballs, 15 sinkers and 10 changeups per Baseball Savant. His slider and four-seamer were particularly successful, as they combined for all five strikeouts and posted whiff rates of 30.8% and 40%, respectively.
The changeup, specifically, was thrown nine times to left-handed hitters. That's a 90% usage rate against lefties, which is somewhat consistent with the 79% clip it checked in at last season. Keller's changeup was his second-best pitch in 2021, with the slider taking the cake in batting average against, SLG against, xSLG and multiple other metrics.
Keller's slider and changeup complement his fastball well and against the Guardians, he had everything working. Not only were 46 of his 69 pitches thrown for strikes, but he limited contact and even got hitters to chase the vertical movement on his tosses. If he can keep this level of play up moving forward — or even come close to it — then the Royals have two smart pitchers atop their rotation. It's still unreasonably early in the year, but Keller got off on the right foot in his 2022 debut.
