BRADENTON, Fla. -- A couple weeks ago down here, I'd asked Mitch Keller, proud owner of a prodigious new 100-mph fastball, if maybe the Pirates had previously been holding him back. Seemed a reasonable question in light of this same team -- albeit under different management -- was known to have done that with Gerrit Cole, Charlie Morton and Tyler Glasnow, preferring instead that they pitch efficiently.
Keller flatly denied it, and I thought nothing more of it once I flew home.
But then, upon returning for a second tour of this spring training, I was told in the most unsolicited way by a clubhouse source that there was more to the story.