PITTSBURGH -- Austin Hedges has caught some of the best pitchers of the last decade. He’s caught a Cy Young Award winner in Shane Bieber as well as talents such as Carlos Carrasco and Triston McKenzie. Hedges is plenty qualified to deem a pitcher worthy of “ace” or “big dog” status. After the series opener vs. Colorado, he submitted Mitch Keller’s name to be on that list.

“He’s in that category of ace,” Hedges said. “He’s [the] one on the mound when it’s time to go into the playoffs and you got to go face a big dog. He’s our big dog. He’s our guy that I don’t care who we’re facing, I’ll take Mitch Keller vs. anybody in the league right now.”

With the weight of a seven-game losing streak on the Pirates’ collective shoulders, Keller did what big dogs do, eviscerating the skid by pitching nine scoreless innings with eight strikeouts, recording the first shutout of his career in a 2-0 win over the Rockies on Monday night.

Following the performance, manager Derek Shelton didn’t need many words to describe what he just witnessed.

“That was a big boy start right there,” Shelton said. “Wow.”

To Shelton, Keller’s performance earned “big boy” status not just because of how well the right-hander pitched, but because of the circumstances. The Pirates had been swept by the Rays and Blue Jays in back-to-back series. During that skid, the Bucs hadn’t played well in any facet of the game. The offense went cold; the defense had its lowlights; and the rotation struggled to provide quality innings.

Keller tried to do his part to stop the skid at Tropicana Field in his last outing, but due to a pair of errors, he gave up four unearned runs and lasted only five innings. Following that outing, one in which he struck out eight and walked just one, Keller commented it was the best he’s felt all year from a stuff perspective. Five days later, Keller one-upped himself to the tune of the most dominant, most masterful game of his career. 

“It’s kind of hard to put it into words,” Keller said. “I’m still speechless about it. It was really cool. I kind of blacked out out there in the fifth or sixth. Yeah, it’s just really special to do it with a bunch of these guys in here. We had been struggling a little bit. Huge win here.”

Shelton added, “That’s what guys who start on Opening Day do. They go out and stop things like that. He stopped it with an exclamation mark.”

While Keller shoved, the Rockies’ Kyle Freeland kept pace right alongside him. In true pitchers' duel fashion, Freeland and Keller spent the bulk of the game trading zeros. The Pirates had their chances, putting runners on first and second with one out in the fifth and runners on first and second with no outs in the sixth. In both frames, Pittsburgh failed to score. In the seventh, however, Freeland became the first to blink, allowing a two-run home run to Rodolfo Castro that broke the scoreless tie.

As Castro’s go-ahead blast cleared the fence, the Pirates’ bullpen collectively unfurled seven games worth of frustrations. Colin Holderman began hopping in place, voraciously waving a towel. Wil Crowe stood and raised his arms in the air. Yohan Ramirez sprinted from one end of the bullpen to the other in jubilation. As Castro jogged around second base, he raised his right arm and pointed his index finger in the bullpen’s direction. 

In the bottom of the eighth, by contrast, Pittsburgh’s relief corps remained firmly planted in its seats. All-Star reliever David Bednar, one of the league’s most dominant closers this season, wasn’t warming up. The same went for Holderman, Robert Stephenson and Duane Underwood Jr. The message was clear: This was Keller’s game to finish. During the frame, pitching coach Oscar Marin asked Shelton if Keller was going out for the ninth. Despite Keller being at 96 pitches, he would have an opportunity to finish what he started.

Bednar got loose in the ninth inning just in case, but Keller ensured that Shelton wouldn’t have to even entertain the thought of bringing in the team’s closer, retiring the side in order. As Keller attempted to conduct a postgame interview on the field, he was given a celebratory dousing of water bottles.

Hedges couldn’t remember postgame the last time he caught a shutout, a rarity in today’s game. But an outing like this will take up permanent residence in Hedges’ memory.

“That’s one of those outings I know he’ll never forget,” Hedges said, “and I’ll never forget it either.”