Pirates All-Star Mitch Keller not at his best in loss to Dodgers

For a good portion of this season, Mitch Keller has been a reliable pitcher, able to carry the team through rough times.

In four of Keller’s nine victories, the previous game or games had been defeats. From April 30 to May 16, he was the only Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher with a victory, twice stopping seven- and four-game losing streaks with victories.

Now that Keller is an All-Star for the first time — he got the good news Sunday before the Pirates’ West Coast road trip — he can expect his teammates to look for him to continue to shoulder a large portion of responsibility.

Which is what made the 5-2 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday night so distressing, coming as it did after the Pirates had lost two in a row at PNC Park over the weekend.

Keller didn’t get much help from Pirates bats and gloves in Dodger Stadium, but he did allow eight hits and five runs (four earned) in five innings.

After a four-game winning streak, the Pirates (39-45) have fallen 6½ games behind National League Central co-leaders Cincinnati and Milwaukee. It’s the furthest the Pirates have been out of first place all season.

Keller might get another start before the All-Star break, but the challenge gets no easier. After the four-game series in Los Angeles, the Pirates travel to Arizona next weekend to confront the Diamondbacks, who are 2½ games ahead of the second-place Dodgers in the NL West.

“To be the best, you have to beat the best and want to play them,” Keller said on the AT&T SportsNet postgame show. “See where your stuff stacks up against them. Tonight, I just didn’t have it.”

The Pirates might look at the loss to the Dodgers as an outlier for Keller (9-4), who still has the second-most victories and strikeouts (125) in the National League. He wasn’t perfect in June, but in three of his previous five games before Monday he had surrendered only one run each time.

He wasn’t happy with his effort Monday, but he was pleased that he and catcher Austin Hedges worked through some trouble.

“It’s the challenge of knowing you’re not as sharp as you can be. Then, the challenge is finding a way to get through it,” he said, “and kind of find out what’s been working and what can work against this lineup.

“It’s one of the best lineups in baseball, if not the best. So when you don’t have your best stuff, it’s a difficult outing and you have to find a way to make it happen.”

The game attracted a crowd of 49,652, and there was a palpable buzz from the seats throughout all nine innings. Keller said he “loves” pitching at Dodger Stadium. “I love the energy here.”

There were moments of satisfaction, too, including keeping Mookie Betts in the park after he entered the game with 22 home runs. There also was the second inning when, after the Dodgers already had scored twice, Keller got Freddie Freeman to bounce out with the bases loaded. Keller struck out seven with only one walk in five innings.

“I thought Hedgie and I navigated as best as we could, made some pitches when I had to, some singles fell in, some bad luck here and there,” he said.

The Dodgers did some damage in the bottom half of their lineup, and Keller was especially bothered by the fourth inning.

“Probably the most frustrating thing was getting two outs and then (allowing) a hit-by-pitch (on No. 8 hitter Miguel Vargas) and then a double (by No. 9 Miguel Rojas).”

“Overall, just not as sharp as I’m used to,” he said.