I listened to Derek Shelton's patient explanation about why he took Mitch Keller out of Saturday's game against Arizona after six innings with the Pirates leading 3-2.
I didn't buy it.
Not one word of it.
I'm convinced Shelton's decision cost the Pirates their best chance of winning a third consecutive game. He brought in Robert Stephenson for the seventh inning, and it took Stephenson just nine pitches to turn that 3-2 lead into a 4-3 loss. He gave up a single to Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and a home run to Pavin Smith.
This was a brutal loss.
It was on the manager.
Can you say over-managing?
"He kind of lost his delivery a little bit," Shelton said of Keller. "We saw the pitches start to not have the same action. He hasn't been in the stretch. Once he got to the stretch, he kind of lost where his arm slot was. That was the biggest thing: seeing his stuff tick down.
"He didn't look like the same guy. He didn't look like he had the same stuff."
Here were the circumstances:
Keller gave up a rare home run to Ketel Marte in the first inning — the first he allowed in six starts — before retiring the next 16 hitters. His big mistake was hitting Josh Rojas with two outs in the sixth inning. Marte followed with an infield single down the third-base line and, after a double steal by Rojas and Marte, Corbin Carroll had a run-scoring infield single that cut the Pirates' lead to 3-2. Christian Walker ended the inning by hitting a ground ball back to Keller.
Shelton replaced Keller even though the Diamondbacks didn't get the ball out of the infield during their rally.
Here are my problems with Shelton's decision:
— Keller threw just 84 pitches, his fewest of the season. He also was pitching on extra rest because of the Pirates' two off days after his previous start.
— Keller was scheduled to face Arizona's 5-6-7 hitters — Gurriel, Smith and Dominic Fletcher — in the seventh inning. They had gone 0 for 6 against him with two strikeouts and four groundouts.
— Even if Keller had lost his "delivery" and a bit of his stuff, he would have given the Pirates a better chance than Stephenson to get to eighth-inning man Colin Holderman and closer David Bednar. You just don't take out your ace there.
"There was no conversation," Keller said of being removed from the game. "[Shelton] came over and told me my day was done. That was that."
It should be pointed out here that Keller acknowledged it took him a moment to get used to pitching out of the stretch.
"I hadn't been in the stretch all game. That was foreign territory for me there. I didn't feel too sharp out of the stretch."
OK, I'll buy that.
But hasn't Keller been pitching so well that he deserved the opportunity to find whatever delivery and stuff he had lost? He started the game after throwing 16 scoreless innings with 21 strikeouts in his two previous starts in a win at Baltimore and a complete-game shutout against Colorado. Those two wins earned him the National League Player of the Week award. His 2.38 earned-run average ranked eighth in MLB. At last check, he was fourth in the betting odds to win the National League Cy Young award.
Sorry, I want Keller pitching that seventh inning. If I had lost the game with him, I would have been able to sleep Saturday night.
But the way it went down?
I'm guessing Shelton did a lot of tossing and turning.
