Keller's funk continues as Pirates' skid hits 10 games

SAN DIEGO -- That makes 10.

The Pirates completed their West Coast road trip with their 10th consecutive loss, bookending the trip with Mitch Keller surrendering a season-high amount of runs. On Wednesday at Petco Park, it was eight runs, all scored over the first three innings of the game, as the Pirates fell to the Padres, 8-2.

In Keller’s last time out against the Dodgers on Friday, his fastball was sharp but his breaking stuff was hit hard. This time around, he didn’t have his normal velocity, with his sinker coming in at 91.4 mph, more than 2 mph under than his season average of 93.7. All five of the pitches he threw were at least 1 mph lower than season average.

The Padres took advantage of that decreased velocity, first on a Jake Cronenworth three-run home run that snuck over the jutted-out part of Petco’s right-field wall down the line. In the third, Jackson Merrill drove in two on a triple before coming home on the next pitch on a David Peralta home run on an elevated four-seamer. That made it 8-0 early, effectively putting the game out of reach.

This came after a seven-run performance against the Dodgers on Friday, with those two starts elevating Keller’s season ERA from 3.20 to 3.95.

“Man, it just sucks,” Keller said. “It feels like whatever I'm throwing up there right now is getting hit. Try to go back, look it over, see what's working, what's not working and why it's happening, and just be better about it."

Keller wound up being pulled after five innings. Of the eight hits he allowed, four were against the fastball, and his two walks on the afternoon were also with his heater.

"I think he's had two rough starts, and we'll kind of build off that,” manager Derek Shelton said. “The last start was probably the best fastball he's had since April. The offspeed stuff wasn't there. It's just one of those things where we got to get him back on track."

For Keller, a losing streak like this is more frustrating than draining. After all, this team was in the playoff picture less than two weeks ago.

“I think we have a really good team, and we know what we can do,” Keller said. “It's just not clicking for us right now. Just disappointed in myself. Just gave up the game pretty early here today. Just didn't give us a chance. That's my job. I didn't do my job today. We suffered because of that."

Of course, one player does not cause a 10-game losing streak, the longest skid of any team besides the White Sox across Major League Baseball this season. The Pirates struck out 14 times on Wednesday, marking the sixth time in 16 games that at least half of their outs came via strikeout. Eight of those strikeouts were against Martín Pérez, whom they dealt at the Trade Deadline. Michael A. Taylor made a dive on a Luis Arraez bloop that turned into an RBI double in the second. They left 10 men on base.

By Shelton’s assessment, it was the first time during this streak where he thought his team was trying to do too much.

“One person doesn't get you out of a stretch like this,” Shelton said. “It has to be a collective group. It's going to have to be doing a little thing here or there and not trying to win a game by yourself. I think that's what your natural tendency is. When you scuffle a little bit, the natural tendency is to go, 'All right, I'm going to go do this today,' instead of, 'Let's collectively do it and good things will happen.'"

Keller and many players were vocal that the goal this year was the playoffs. At 56-64, that seems unlikely. Keller isn’t giving up on October yet, but it’s clear this team needs to get back to playing winning ball.

"I think the goal is to just play better baseball,” Shelton said. “We have to continue to play better baseball, and we have to do that every day."

“It's going to be an uphill battle, for sure, but we're going to do the best that we can,” Keller said. “Feel like we've got a lot of good baseball left to play. We played really good for a long time. I feel like we're just in a rut right now, and we've got to get out of it as fast as possible.”