Mitch Keller started off the season hot for the Pittsburgh Pirates and was definitely among the better pitchers in baseball. However, he's dropped off a bit since the beginning of the season, and so have the Pirates. If you take a look at the first 10 starts for Keller vs. the last 13, the results are astonishing.

In Keller's first 10 starts, he had a 2.44 ERA, 10 quality starts and allowed five or more earned runs zero times, according to a tweet from Jason Mackey. In his last 13 starts, Keller has a 5.64 ERA, four quality starts and he has allowed five or more ER five different times. That's quite the drop off for the Pirates pitcher.

The Pirates started the season red hot and got out to a 20-9 record, and part of that success was due to good outings from pitchers like Keller. Now, things have gone down hill. Pittsburgh is currently 48-60 and sitting in fourth place in the NL Central, 10 games behind the first place Milwaukee Brewers/Cincinnati Reds. It doesn't seem like a playoff push is going to be happening for the Pirates, and they weren't very aggressive at the trade deadline because of it.

For Keller, he just has to spend the rest of the season trying to get back to where he was at the beginning of the year. Baseball is a very mental game, and it can be very difficult to dig yourself out of a bad slump. However, at the end of the day, Keller knows that he's capable of being one of the better pitchers in the game because he was one of them at the beginning of the season. We'll see if Keller and the Pirates have any late season magic up their sleeve.