Royals young ace Brad Keller puts on a show against his hometown team

Royals right-hander Brad Keller pitched in front of friends and family in his home state and put on a show at the expense of the Atlanta Braves.

The day certainly belonged to the 6-foot-5, 230-pound 23-year-old from Flowery Branch, Georgia. Keller, who grew up a Braves fan, pitched seven scoreless innings for the third time this season. He also contributed with the bat.

Keller set the tone as the Royals completed a sweep of their two-game series with the Braves by shutting out their hosts 2-0 in front of an announced 38,865 at SunTrust Park. Keller has now won three consecutive starts and four consecutive decisions.

“That was a blast, to be able to come out here and pitch in front of my home team, I guess, it was a lot of fun and a ton of adrenaline was going, especially in the first,” Keller said. “To be able to get the team a win was awesome.”

Bubba Starling went 1-for-4 with a double and a run scored, and Cheslor Cuthbert had two hits for the Royals (39-64).

Keller (1-for-2) helped his own cause at the plate. He recorded his first major-league RBI in his first at-bat in the second inning, and he walked in his second plate appearance to reach base in each of his first two appearances.

Keller admitted he consciously tried not to look at the section of the stands where the majority of his family and friends were seated, but he heard them. “Especially when I got up to the plate,” Keller said.

Keller, who went to high school 50 miles from where SunTrust Park now stands, had more than 50 ticket requests and more than 150 people were in the park to see him take on the team he rooted for in his youth.

The adrenaline of pitching in front of a cheering section from Flowery Branch showed throughout the night. Keller entered the night averaging 93.3 mph on his fastball this season, but he sat 94-96 most of the night and he touched 98 on a called third strike to Brian McCann to end the fourth inning.

Through the first four innings, he allowed just one fly ball out. The Braves (60-43) had a hard time doing anything but pound the ball into the dirt when they made contact against Keller.

All of the scoring took place in the second inning. After a fielding error on a ball hit by rookie catcher Meibrys Viloria allowed Starling to score the game’s first run, Keller’s line-drive single into center field drove in Nicky Lopez with two outs.

It also led to a funny exchange at first base with Braves All-Star Freddie Freeman. Freeman looked at Keller standing on first base and said, “It’s that easy?”

“And I was like no. That was all luck,” Keller said. “Close your eyes and swing hard just in case you hit it, right. That was an adrenaline rush as well, no doubt.”

Keller (7-9) allowed four hits, walked one and struck out three as he held the Braves scoreless for seven innings. Of his 88 pitches, 62 were strikes.

“It didn’t surprise me,” Royals manager Ned Yost said of Keller’s performance. “He’s a kid that we opted to be our opening day starter for a lot of reasons. The lot of reasons are that he’s got poise, he’s got great stuff, he’s a great competitor. You know, he doesn’t back down. The situation wouldn’t be too big for him. It was the same tonight.

“When they announced his name, you could hear the cheering section they had for him. It was a big one. He stepped up and pitched the way I expected him to pitch, just went right after them.”

Keller might have taken his outing into the eighth inning, but he threw 16 seventh-inning pitches including an 11-pitch at-bat against Nick Markakis that ended in a fielder’s choice.

Left-handed reliever Jake Diekman struck out three batters in a scoreless eighth inning. Ian Kennedy pitched a 1-2-3 ninth and struck out two for the save, his 19th of the season and eighth since the All-Star break (the most in the majors in that span).

The Royals are now 9-3 since the break.

“I feel like we’ve had some timely hitting and our pitching has been great, whether it’s relievers, starters, they’ve made it easy on us position players, defensively,” Starling said. “Up and down the lineup, it’s just that few hits here and there. Timely hitting, that’s what it was.”

This story was originally published July 24, 2019 at 9:25 PM.