Mitch Keller and his family enjoying the ride to all-star status after experiencing failure

CEDAR RAPIDS — It was mid-June of 2021, and Joni Keller’s phone rang, her youngest son trying to get hold of her.

Joni was at a social gathering, excused herself from the crowd to find quiet and called him back.

Mitch Keller was in Milwaukee with his Pittsburgh Pirates. Al Keller, Mitch’s dad and Joni’s husband, was there to visit him, thus Joni kind of figured this phone call might not contain especially good news.

It didn’t. The Pirates had just optioned Mitch to Triple-A, the official low point of a professional pitching career that was once so very promising but seemed to be falling apart so very rapidly.

“He was just devastated,” Joni Keller said. “He told me how he felt he had let his family down, that he had let the team down, he had let Cedar Rapids down, his coaches. He just went on and on.

“I tried the best I could to kind of build him back up. I told him ‘You know what, Mitch? Some day we are going to be talking about how this is just one chapter of your book. We are going to be talking about your successes, too.’”

Moms know. That 2021 phone conversation popped into Joni Keller’s mind when Mitch called her and Al last week, once again with some news.

Only some of the best news this time. Mitch Keller had just been told by Pirates Manager Derek Shelton that he’d been selected to the National League team for the 2023 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, which is Tuesday night at T-Mobile Park in Seattle.

Going from being demoted to the minors to an MLB All-Star in two years? Simply amazing.

“The success we’re talking about is just the next chapter that we talked about that day that I knew was coming,” Joni Keller said. “I told him the thing that was going to be so cool about this is that through all the struggles, he is going to be able to help out so many other players because of this ... He’s going to be able to turn around and help somebody else who is going through the adversity that he went through.”

Al and Joni Keller flew Sunday morning from Cedar Rapids to Seattle to meet their son and his wife, Clancy, and take part in the myriad all-star festivities. As did Mitch’s older brother, Jon, his wife, Kelsey, and their young daughter, Logan.

A family celebration.

“It’s been pretty incredible to watch on my end,” said Clancy Keller.

“None of this, none of this we ever anticipated or thought about,” Al Keller said. “Yeah, he’s been through this and that, but something like this, not even close. Like Mitch said in one of his (recent) interviews, it is somewhat of a validation of his hard work and overcoming adversity and having perseverance. But, you know what? You take it too seriously at times, about that time you do and think you’re at the top of the mountain, the (game) takes you right back down the mountain again.”

No one knows that better than Mitch Keller.

Now 27, he was selected by the Pirates in the second round of the 2014 MLB Draft out of Cedar Rapids Xavier High School and excelled immediately after signing a contract with a bonus of $1 million. The right-hander rocketed through Pittsburgh’s farm system, became one of the game’s top prospects, making his big -league debut in 2019.

That start against the Cincinnati Reds didn’t go very well. He gave up six runs in the first inning, lasted only three and took the loss. It was a harbinger of things to come, as he got mostly hit around in 10 other starts that season, was injured and made just five starts in the truncated 2020 season, then struggled some more in 2021.

Al and Jon Keller pointed out how they saw a TV graphic during one of Mitch’s starts in 2021 on how he was last in the major leagues in just about every starting pitching category.

“To go from that to being an all-star, it was just a lot of hard work and not giving up on yourself,” Al Keller said. “Baseball is a tough sport ... You’ve got to have some luck behind you, you’ve got to have good people behind you. And you’ve got to be good.”

In order to become good, Mitch spent part of the 2021 offseason in Charlotte, N.C., at the Tread Athletics Sports Performance center, where his mechanics were intricately broken down, helping him regain some fastball velocity. When that added velo (to the upper-90s) didn’t produce results at the beginning of last season, he learned how to throw a sinker and slider.

Voila. Things finally turned around the second half of 2022 and continued into this season.

Keller is 9-4 with a 3.31 earned run average in 19 starts for the Pirates, including throwing seven innings of one-hit shutout ball in his most recent start this past Saturday at Arizona. He has given up just 97 hits in 117 innings and struck out 129.

“There really aren’t words,” said Jon Keller, who pitched five years in the Baltimore Orioles farm system. “Just being his brother, his best friend and growing up with him and doing literally everything together and still doing that when he’s home in the offseason.

“Just watching him and watching him become who he is as a player and also as a person, it’s amazing.”

When asked to give a scouting report on Mitch the person, all the Kellers gave the same one. Clancy has known him since the third grade, began dating him when the two were at Xavier.

“I’m a little biased, but he’s super down to earth,” Clancy Keller said. “You see him on the street, you probably wouldn’t know he’s an incredible baseball player. He doesn’t act like he’s got a big ego, by any means. He’s just an average guy from Iowa that happens to be very good at what he does. Just always a positive guy, always has a smile on his face, always willing to talk to whoever. Definitely an easy guy to get along with and support.”

“He’s just the most down-to-earth, phenomenal guy. This couldn’t happen to a better person,” Jon Keller said. “His story is unbelievable ... Toward the end of my career, I went through a really tough time mentally, so I’ve been there. I know how it is. It’s the loneliest place in the world when you’re not doing well, and you are expected to do well. He went through some pretty dark times, and to come back from that is remarkable.”

It’ll definitely be exciting to see the next couple chapters of this story, as Joni Keller said earlier. She admitted she finds it difficult sometimes to be the mother of a high-profile professional athlete.

She used to constantly send him texts to see how he was doing, especially during the tough times. She brought that up to him while sharing a mother-son dance at Mitch and Clancy’s wedding reception in the fall of 2022.

“I told him, ‘Mitch, the reason I was sending you all those texts is because I needed to make sure you were OK,’” Joni said. “But what I really found out, and he finished my sentence for me, said ‘You needed to do it for you to feel OK, right, mom?’ I told him yep. That’s what I mean about him being an old soul. He just gets it ...

“I’m still trying to become the mom of a professional baseball player in a big-time society, where everybody gets to see your flaws, your good days and your bad ones. When he gets these accolades and stuff, sometimes I cringe because I’m like ‘Ah, that’s just more pressure. More pressure.’

“When you look back at it, he rose to the top pretty fast. He was their number one prospect, then they were calling in the middle of the season and telling him he was the number one dog. That’s just so much pressure. At that time, he was just 22 or 23 years old. I’m still trying to get further past that journey, get thicker skin, where I can just really sit back and enjoy all of this. I think I’m finally getting there. But it’s tough.”

Comments: jeff.johnson@thegazette.com