After two elbow surgeries, Brian Keller’s baseball dreams dimmed. But on Saturday, he made his big league debut.
He blew out his elbow pitching in Japan, and when further issues arose he paid “12 grand maybe, something like that,” for a surgery. It was part of his decade-long journey to his big league debut.
A half-hour after the final out, Brian Keller still hadn’t peeled off the uniform.
There wasn’t time. Not between taking photos on the field with family and talking with reporters in the middle of the Phillies’ clubhouse. Besides, after 10 years, two countries, and multiple surgeries — one of which he paid for out of pocket — he didn’t know if he’d ever get to wear it.
And so Keller was still decked out in red pinstripes, No. 48 on his back, when he poked his head into the office where pitching coach Caleb Cotham and assistant Mark Lowy were packing up for the night.
“I hope I get to do it again,” Keller told them.
Hey, why not?
Look, the Phillies didn’t make any guarantees when they called up Keller, age 32, 10 years after he was a 39th-round pick in an MLB draft that has since been curtailed to 20 rounds. But they’ve searched for a No. 5 starter since demoting Andrew Painter to triple A last month and haven’t won a game from the fifth-starter spot in 11 tries since May 18.
They didn’t win this one either, not after the Yankees broke a tie in the sixth inning to send the Phillies to a 3-1 loss, their fourth defeat in a row. But Keller did his part, following lefty opener Tim Mayza and delivering three solid innings that were tainted only by a two-out homer from Austin Wells.
Keller might’ve kept going, too, except interim manager Don Mattingly wanted a lefty to face a left-handed pocket of the Yankees’ lineup in the sixth inning. Kyle Backhus walked the leadoff man, who scored on Cody Bellinger’s two-out single against Seth Johnson.
But don’t let those details rain on the parade of a righty from Wisconsin, 18 miles northwest of Milwaukee, whose long shot to reach the majors got even longer a few years ago.
It was 2023, and Keller was pitching in Japan when he blew out his elbow. He had Tommy John surgery and missed two seasons trying to come back. When further issues arose, he paid “12 grand maybe, something like that,” to undergo a nerve transposition.
“I wasn’t with an organization, and it wasn’t a medically necessary surgery, technically,” Keller said. “It was necessary from the viewpoint of getting back to playing professional baseball, so, hey, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, right?
“Luckily, I made a little bit of money in Japan to basically buy me a little bit of time to be able to go through that rehab process. … Took a little hit, but we’re here. So we’re all right.”
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Keller always pictured what it would be like to reach the majors, but if he’s being honest, the image in his mind had dimmed.
“Oh yeah, definitely,” said Keller, who signed with the Phillies in May and had a 2.23 ERA in triple A. “During rehab, it was like, I don’t know if you’d call it a setback, but somewhat setback after setback to the point where, yeah, I just didn’t know if it was ever going to happen, pitching again professionally, much less playing in the big leagues.
“But, yeah, here we are.”
Indeed, there was Keller, running in from the bullpen to begin the third inning in front of a personal cheering section — “I think 20 people, total,” he said — and striking out Jazz Chisholm Jr. on a slider.
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Keller sidestepped a one-out single by Paul Goldschmidt in the fourth inning and struck out Chisholm again on another slider and José Caballero on a fastball to end the fifth. He threw 39 pitches, 29 strikes.
“He handled himself fine,” Mattingly said. “Threw strikes. He went after them. He was on the attack. He wasn’t walking people. So, that part of it I like.”
Enough to get another chance next Friday night in Baltimore?
“It’s something we’ll talk about as we get there,” Mattingly said. “But he did fine.”
Just in case, he left on the jersey to make the most of his first night in the majors.
“Nobody can take that from me, right?” he said. “Proud of that.”
