Behind ace Mitch Keller — and despite struggles — Pirates near 1st through season's opening quarter

The Pittsburgh Pirates have a .154 winning percentage since the last day of April, but look at those standings:

They are only 1½ games behind the first-place Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Central.

How did that happen?

The division isn’t offering serious competition at the moment. The Brewers (23-17) and Pirates (22-19) are the only teams with winning records.

But a bigger reason stands atop the pitcher’s mound every fifth or sixth day. Ace Mitch Keller has kept the Pirates — losers of 11 of their past 13 games — alive through the first quarter of the season. After an off day Monday, the Pirates play Tuesday and Wednesday in Detroit.

When Keller (5-1) pitches next weekend against the Arizona Diamondbacks at PNC Park, he will carry a string of 16 consecutive scoreless innings into the game. He hasn’t allowed more than two earned runs in any outing since April 16, and his ERA has fallen from 7.71 on Opening Day in Cincinnati to 2.39 on Sunday afternoon in Baltimore.

And it’s not just the movement on his fastball and sinker that shackled the Orioles and helped manufacture 13 strikeouts Sunday. Keller is building trust with his teammates, who only had to record 10 outs in the Pirates’ 4-0 victory. Keller, Colin Holderman and David Bednar took care of the other 17 with strikeouts.

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When Bryan Reynolds was asked on AT&T SportsNet to describe how good Keller has been this season, he said, with a straight face, “Really good.”

Then, he amplified his answer with an explanation of just how much Keller means to a young Pirates team trying to remain upright in the standings.

“Just seeing him out on the mound, it’s a good feeling,” said Reynolds, who leads the Pirates with a .293 batting average and 23 RBIs. “You know he’s going to attack. He’s going to be confident. He’s going to give you his all. It really makes you strap in even more and just try to push one run across for him because that seems like that’s all he needs.

“He’s lights out every time he steps on the mound. He’s a bulldog out there. He just attacks them. He just pretty much challenges them.”

Reynolds’ words about Keller resonate because they have been teammates in Pittsburgh since 2019. For Keller’s first three seasons, his ERA was 6.02, and he totaled only seven wins.

“I think I respect (his current efforts) even more,” Reynolds said, “knowing where he was at in ‘19 and what he worked through and the adjustments he made to become the guy he is now. I’m really proud of him.”

The key for Keller has been his command of the strike zone early in at-bats.

“It really puts the hitters on the defensive mode if they have to protect,” Keller said, “and I can throw, literally, anything I want. Get ahead as fast as possible and put them away when you’re ahead.”

The only problem with Keller is he has only one right arm. The Pirates need to develop depth in their starting rotation that’s missing — because of arm injuries — J.T. Brubaker and Vince Velasquez. Brubaker (Tommy John surgery) is out for the season, but Velasquez could return before the end of the month.

After 43-year-old Rich Hill, the remainder of the rotation includes Luis Ortiz, 24; Johan Oviedo, 25; Roansy Contreras, 23; and Keller, 27. Ortiz and Hill will pitch Tuesday and Wednesday against the Tigers.

Over the past two weeks, the starters needed to be almost perfect while the bats went largely silent.

The situation improved slightly Sunday, with:

• Designated hitter Andrew McCutchen batting leadoff, opening the game with a single and scoring the first run.

• Ke’Bryan Hayes moving from leadoff to the No. 5 spot in the order and contributing an RBI single.

• Ji Hwan Bae knocking in two runs with a single, even though he is hitting only .243.

Those little things helped the Pirates score more than three runs for the first time in two weeks and a day. They also got lucky when Reynolds struck out on a pitch that bounced far enough away from home plate for him to reach first base and eventually score.

“That’s what makes us good. Hopefully, we keep building off that and grind it out,” Reynolds said.

It was a break that led to a victory when the Pirates managed only seven singles. Those plays are important for a team that has hit only 40 home runs, 23rd out of 30 MLB teams.

“We have to play the nine-vs.-one mentality,” catcher Austin Hedges said on AT&T SportsNet. “When we’re out there having team at-bats, running the bases the right way, playing defense, when we’re doing all that, that’s the Pirates that, I think, are going to win a lot of games. When we play as a team like that, I think it’s special.”

Especially if Keller is pitching.