SEATTLE -- Mitch Keller had just allowed a home run a few innings prior, but was still all smiles talking to reporters after pitching his frame in the 93rd annual All-Star Game, this time at T-Mobile Park.
He deserved to be, as he had completed one of the most drastic and rapid turnarounds for a pitcher's fortune in recent Pirates history, something even he admits he wouldn't have believed just 14 months ago. It's not a happy ending, but rather a happy somewhere-in-the-middle.
So when he was asked if there was anything he would have wanted to tell himself from three years ago, he needed a moment to think. I mean, there was a lot he wanted to say. But one thought stood out first.
"There's light at the end of the tunnel," he said.
Keller would be the only one of the Pirates' two All-Stars to pitch Tuesday in what would wind up being a 3-2 National League win over the American League, snapping a nine-game losing streak for the Senior Circuit. David Bednar would get loose in the fifth and in the ninth, but did not enter the game.
The Pirates' closer can live with that. This was Keller's day.
"Watching Mitch do his thing was awesome," a beaming Bednar told me afterwards.
Keller was the second man up for the National League and made one bad pitch, a hanging breaking ball that stayed on the inside part of the plate which Rays slugger Yandy Díaz promptly hit out.
"Yandy, he's kind of had my number my whole career, even going back to the minor leagues, I think," Keller said, before quickly clarifying, "actually, I know, I don't think."
Oh well, it's just an exhibition. And fun, too. That's the mentality Keller had on the mound.
"Wasn't trying to do anything too special," he said. "Just do what I do. Throw strikes, let the defense work and if the strikeouts come, they come."
He ended up getting that strikeout too, getting Adolis García of the Rangers to chase a sweeper that ran away from him:
Mitch's first strikeout as an All-Star. pic.twitter.com/KphLS8URCF
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) July 12, 2023
See, there's the breaking ball that got Keller into this game.
"Told myself I wasn't going to let this one be in the strike zone again," Keller joked.
Keller was quickly let off the off the hook for the loss with a Luis Arraez RBI single, and down 2-1 in the eighth, it was former Pirate Elías Diaz who propelled the National League to victory with a two-run homer, earning All-Star Game Most Valuable Player honors in the process.
The American League flirted with a comeback in the ninth after Craig Kimbrel walked a pair with two outs. Bednar tossed again in the bullpen late then, trying to recreate the same situation as last year where he entered the ninth inning late after not expecting to throw. It wasn't the case this time though.
"I just don't think there's anybody that's doing it right now that you have anymore confidence in than him," Bednar said about Kimbrel. "It was cool to be down there and pick his brain a little bit."
Before the season, Keller laid out three goals for himself: Be the opening day starter, become an All-Star and throw 200 innings. The first two have already happened, and at 117 innings pitched through 90 games, Keller has a chance at reaching his innings goal if he stays healthy.
So when he was all smiles, I asked if he had come up with another goal for the second half of the season.
"Just to finish strong," Keller answered. "To just keep going with what I've been doing and hopefully we can win a lot of games in Pittsburgh. Just keep going."
