Pittsburgh Pirates News: Mitch Keller Making Late Season Return

The Pittsburgh Pirates are getting some positive news to start the week.  They will see one of their most promising young pitchers return from the Injured List on Monday.

The Pittsburgh Pirates did not have a whole lot to celebrate this weekend.  The team got embarrassed by one of the worst teams in the American League.  Beyond losing to the Royals, Derek Shelton continues to trot out JT Riddle and play Josh Bell at first base instead of DH.  While the young guys are playing more, the team still has not committed to playing them full-time.

The good news is the Pittsburgh Pirates are getting one of their more promising young players back tomorrow.  Mitch Keller is set to return from the Injured List.  The Reds and Bucs have a double-header tomorrow, and so Keller will start one of those.  This update comes from Alex Stumpf of dkpittsburghsports.com, who also said that there has been no indication which game Keller will start:

This is obviously good news as Mitch Keller needs to get back on the mound.  If he is going to be leaned on as this team’s top young arm to build around, he needs to take a step forward.  Keller opened up the year pitching to a 3.52 ERA through 7.2 innings (two starts) before being sidelined.  While this was an improvement from his 7.13 ERA in 2019, he still did not look sharp.  He actually walked more batters than he struck out, four to three, which was concerning but also makes you wonder how much the injury was effecting him.

With the last few weeks of the season, if Keller is 100 percent healthy the team needs to unleash him.  Beyond that, Keller needs to unleash himself and trust his stuff.  Keller has the stuff to be this team’s future ace.  Even more so, the Pittsburgh Pirates cannot have another top pitching prospect fail work out.