Trip to Fenway Park helped turn things around for Kansas City Royals pitcher Brad Keller
A trip to Boston’s historic Fenway Park last summer provided a great lesson in perspective for Kansas City Royals pitcher Brad Keller, quite literally.
Keller enters his start on Friday night in the club’s series opener against the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park having allowed just two runs, five hits and three walks in 13 innings across two starts. He entered the day with 10 strikeouts and a 0.62 WHIP.
It’s a far cry from last year, when one of the major questions of the first half of the season was: What happened to Brad Keller?
For the first three months of last season, he hadn’t been the coming-right-at-you bulldog pitcher with the dare-you-to-hit-this demeanor.
Instead, he battled control issues and always seemed to be working around walks. He ended up on the bad end of several highlights of long home runs because of pitches he left in bad locations to dangerous hitters.
Then he pitched in Boston on June 29.
The start at Fenway Park wasn’t remarkable. He gave up six runs, 10 hits, five walks and a hit batter.
It was while reviewing the video from the game, dutifully going through the process of revisiting the scene of the crime, that a breakthrough occurred.
“The visual of it is perfectly behind the pitcher,” Keller said. “So you can actually tell whether or not you’re driving (in the right direction). You can actually see where you’re pushing off on your foot. So that’s kind of where it started. Whenever we sat down to watch that video, it was kind of like a light bulb. It’s like, ‘Wow, it’s right there.’”
The camera view at Fenway Park was directly behind the pitcher. So he saw exactly where his body was driving in comparison to his target. Most of the time, he’d been looking at a side or off-angle view.
Once Keller saw that and put it together with the other views, it became clear how his push off was sending his momentum sideways and causing him to throw across his body or “crossfire.”
That led to pitches sailing and inconsistent command. It was difficult to consistently keep the ball down.
Last season prior to his “light bulb” moment, Keller posted a 6.67 ERA, with 67 strikeouts, 110 hits allowed, 42 walks, five hit batters and an opponent’s slash line of .328/.403/.510 in 81 innings across 17 starts.
Feeling a difference at Fenway
He threw a bullpen with a camera trained on him the last day in Boston, before the team’s getaway day game at Fenway. That allowed him to make that connection between “seeing” the difference in his pitching mechanics and “feeling” the difference.
The Royals coaches had a clear idea what his primary issues were, but that session was the time it really “clicked” for Keller.
“When somebody sees it — they finally understand it and see it and feel it,” Royals pitching coach Cal Eldred said, his enthusiasm evident as his voice sped up. “Well now, he’s in a position to change it.
“Until you get there, it’s awful hard. Hitting coaches will tell you the same thing. When a guy is like, ‘Well, I can see what I’m doing wrong, but that’s not what I feel.’ Well, we’ve still got some work to do.”
From that point through the end of the season — Keller didn’t pitch after Aug. 26 because of a right lat strain — he posted an ERA of 3.42 with 53 strikeouts, 48 hits allowed, 22 walks, two hit batters, and opponents batting .244, posting an on-base percentage of .324 and slugging .366 against him in 52 2/3 innings across nine starts.
In those final nine starts, he began to make the adjustment to drive more off the heel than the toe of the push-off leg. He also put an emphasis on staying more gathered over the pitching rubber in his delivery.
“He’s now getting to the point where he knows exactly what he needs to do from a directional standpoint, but also from an effort standpoint,” Eldred said. “He’s so big and strong. Is he working? Is he trying? Absolutely. But sometimes it’s too hard. It helps him, when he’s not trying too hard, to go in the right direction. That’s going to help his command.”
Staying in control over the top of the rubber also helps keep him from tensing up/muscling because he’s trying too hard. Keeping that consistent effort level also assures everything works in sync with consistent direction and consistent command.
“Once you’ve downloaded on your hard drive the right way to do it, then you don’t really have to think about it out there,” Eldred said. “Or because you’ve done all that, you can think about it one or two pitches — preferably your warmup pitches. Then when a guy steps in the box, I’m just going to throw the ball where I’m supposed to. And you repeat what you’re supposed to be doing.”
Building on the new foundation
After having gained a more clear grasp of what his mechanics should look and feel like when in sync as well as what it feels and looks like when out of sync, Keller was able to make in-game adjustments to correct himself with a few words from Eldred.
Whereas earlier in the season, the process of making corrections likely took multiple days between breaking down video, conversations with coaches and throwing at least one side session if not more.
“When you feel confidence in your delivery, you’re able to actually work on things versus constantly focusing on your mechanics,” Keller said. “It’s like you don’t want to work on anything else if you can’t even deliver the ball correctly. So once I was able to get that, I was able to feel like my changeup got better. My slider got better. My fastball command got better. That’s ultimately where it started.”
That’s still the building block he’s working off this year. In his bullpen sessions this season, he’s been able to tell pretty definitively and quickly by the location of his sinking fastball and his four-seam fastball if his delivery is in line or not.
When he’s able to carry good mechanics into a game, it means he can focus on “compete mode” against the hitter in the box as opposed to worrying about how to manipulate his body in order to get the ball where he wants it.
What does that mean from a coaching perspective?
Well, the first priority is to keep Keller in that good space as far as his delivery, Eldred said.
Then, they can work on making specific pitches more of a factor. Whether that’s his changeup or having consistent command of both his sinker and his four-seam fastball.
“Those are the things you build on,” Eldred said. “You add weapons, is what you do, not more pitches. He’s got, really, four pitches when you count his two fastballs, his slider and his changeup.
“Now all of a sudden, the more he does it over and over, it’s just how do we mix those.”
Including his first two starts of this season, eight of Keller’s last 11 starts have been quality starts, and he has a 3.02 ERA during that span.
Seattle should be an interesting test for Keller. In four previous appearances, including three starts, against Seattle, he’s gone 0-2 with a 5.00 ERA having allowed 10 earned runs in 18 innings.
