Mitch Keller had plenty of reasons to trust his breaking pitches through seven starts. Entering the Pirates' 9-4 loss tonight against the Padres, hitters were whiffing at more than a 20% rate against each such pitch while batting .120 against his sweeper (17.8% usage), .227 against his slider (15.7%) and .091 against his curveball (9.2%). His four-seam fastball, changeup and sinker were generating fewer whiffs (13.8% or less) and were being hit with more regularity than some of his more trustworthy weapons. 

On this night, that didn't apply.

He allowed five runs (four earned) on eight hits, including a fourth-inning home run to Gavin Sheets, and a walk. He struck out three and threw 64 of his 88 pitches for strikes over five innings. And within that, he leaned primarily on his fastball (27 times) and turned to his sinker (15) and changeup (8) a good bit. He ran into some trouble in the fourth, though, allowing the solo shot to Sheets on a middle-away fastball and another fastball up and out of the zone to Tyler Wade.

That's why having an expansive repertoire is so important, though, right? 

Keller relied on his breaking stuff often in the fifth and did generate all three outs with either his slider or his sweeper, but he wasn't fooling the four straight batters who registered a hit off of him and helped generate three more runs. 

Oscar Gonzalez singled on an 0-1 sweeper at the bottom of the zone and Luis Arraez followed by turning on a low 0-2 slider and doing this to give the Padres a 3-2 lead: 

Manny Machado delivered, too, but he had to go out of the zone to get to an 0-1 slider and send it the other way for a single that landed just out of the reach of a diving Oneil Cruz: 

For that final hit allowed in the fifth, Keller turned to the slider again and left it in a familiar location to the guy that homered off the heater earlier: 

Low and in the zone again, and hit past a diving Adam Frazier for an RBI single. 

Keller said he felt good about where he was executing his breaking pitches, but, looking back, he probably would have avoided throwing that slider anywhere close to the zone considering Arraez's tendency to chase:

"They're a really good team," he said. "They've got a lot of good guys in that lineup who know how to swing it. Got Arraez, amazing bat-to-ball skills, then just look up and down their lineup, they've got a bunch of guys that have done it and that are doing it currently. It's a tough lineup to face, for sure. They don't swing and miss a lot, so you've got to put your pitches where you want them. If you don't, they're going to find a way, and they found a way tonight."