Mitch Keller pitched into the seventh inning, Nick Gonzales delivered an RBI double and the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Atlanta Braves 4-1 on Saturday.

Keller (6-3) kept Atlanta in check for 6 2/3 innings to win his fourth consecutive start. The right-hander gave up one run on six hits with four strikeouts and no walks. Keller is 4-0 with a 1.30 ERA in four starts in May and has worked at least five innings in each of his last 42 starts, the longest active streak in the majors.

Bryan Reynolds had two hits for Pittsburgh, including a run-scoring single in the seventh that gave the Pirates a little breathing room on the day they celebrated the 45th anniversary of the 1979 team’s World Series title.

Several players from that club — including Hall of Fame pitcher Bert Blyleven, reliever Kent Tekeulve and two-time National League MVP Dave Parker — were honored before the first pitch.

Nick Gonzales doubled and scored for the Pirates. The second baseman, a first-round pick in the 2020 draft, is hitting .333 (15 of 45) with 12 RBI over his last 12 games.

Pittsburgh’s bullpen, which struggled in a pair of late collapses to San Francisco earlier in the week, avoided a meltdown against the Braves. Colin Holderman retired four of the five batters he faced after replacing Keller. David Bednar induced Ronald Acuna Jr. into a game-ending fielder’s choice with two on in the ninth to pick up his 11th save.

Atlanta’s Reynaldo López (2-2) wasn’t quite as sharp as he’s been during the best two-month stretch of his nine-year career. The right-hander — who began the day with a 1.54 ERA, third-lowest in the majors — only retired the Pirates in order once and was dinged by the bottom half of the lineup during 4 2/3 so-so innings.

The Braves offense managed just one extra-base hit off Keller, a double by Ozzie Albies in the first. Jarred Kelenic provided an RBI single in the fourth but Atlanta did little else while suffering a second straight loss.

Pittsburgh’s Jared Triolo led off the third with a double and scored on a RBI single by Ji Hwan Bae. López walked Oneil Cruz to start the fourth and the towering 6-foot-7 shortstop then scored from first by getting an excellent read on Gonzales’ double off the 21-foot-high Clemente Wall in right. Gonzales then gave the Pirates a 3-1 lead when he sprinted home on Olivares’ sacrifice fly to left.

López exited after a 30-minute rain delay interrupted the bottom of the fifth. He gave up three runs, two earned on five hits with a walk and three strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings as his ERA ticked up to 1.75.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Pirates: 3B Ke’Bryan Hayes (back) has resumed full baseball activities. It’s unclear whether the Gold Glove winner, out since May 7, will need a rehab assignment before returning. … C Jason Delay (knee) is scheduled to begin a rehab stint at Triple-A Indianapolis next week.

UP NEXT

The series wraps up on Sunday when Atlanta’s Chris Sale (7-1, 2.22 ERA) goes for his seventh win in as many starts. Martín Pérez (1-3, 4.80), winless since April 4, gets the nod for Pittsburgh.

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The offseason has arrived for all but a handful of teams who are still taking part in the playoffs. Accordingly, it’s now time to examine what they will need to accomplish over the coming months.  Next up is a look at Pittsburgh.

The Pittsburgh Penguins came into the 2023-24 season with playoff expectations after turning over nearly half of their roster last summer and acquiring reigning Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson. However, things didn’t go as planned as the power play and poor team defense were the Penguins’ undoing, leading them to miss the playoffs for a second straight season and just the third time since Sidney Crosby’s arrival in 2005. General manager Kyle Dubas made a lot of moves last summer after arriving from Toronto and has now had a full season to evaluate the team’s needs and how he can help get the group back into the playoff picture. The Penguins have one of the oldest rosters in the league and Dubas has expressed interest in getting younger which will make for a busy summer in Pittsburgh.

Extension Talks

The Penguins have plenty of holes to fill on their roster but all the talk over the next month will be about Crosby’s potential extension that he is eligible to sign on July 1st. It seems likely that the Penguins will be extending Crosby as both he and the team have expressed strong interest in him ending his career in Pittsburgh. Until that deal is done and sealed, the talk in Pittsburgh will be about the future of 87. Crosby had a season for the ages at 36 years old and could command any number he wanted on the open market. However, he has taken a hometown discount on each of his last two extensions and has had an $8.7MM average annual value since 2008-09. With his next deal, Crosby may finally elect to carry a cap hit north of $10MM for the first time in his career, although it wouldn’t be shocking to see him take less once again so the Penguins can add to their lineup. Much of the chatter has been about Crosby inking a short-term extension in July, one that could take him to the end of Kris Letang’s current contract.

The Penguins also have a few other players of note that will become extension-eligible on July 1st. Marcus Pettersson is the most defensively consistent player on the Penguins roster and has developed into a very effective shutdown defender for Pittsburgh. The 28-year-old posted career highs this past season tallying four goals and 26 assists while registering a plus-28 rating. He plays a quiet responsible game and has been asked to play alongside both Karlsson and Letang, leading to both players showing more effectiveness when paired with the big Swede. Karlsson struggled when he wasn’t paired with Pettersson and showed a noticeable decline when flanked by Ryan Graves. Pettersson is slated to make just $4.025MM in the final year of his five-year deal and could command upwards of $6MM on a long-term deal should he reach unrestricted free agency. The Penguins have reportedly already initiated contract talks with Pettersson, which makes sense given that they don’t have many effective defenders in their lineup. The team could explore a potential offseason trade, but it would leave a massive hole in their top four and provide another issue for Dubas to solve.

Drew O’Connor is another Penguins player who will be eligible for an extension this summer and is coming off a career year. The 25-year-old has been on the cusp of becoming an NHL regular for a number of years and finally lived up to the potential that many pundits thought he had when the Penguins signed him out of the NCAA back in March 2020. O’Connor had 16 goals and 17 assists in 79 games this season while finally using his speed and size to become a disruptive force on the Penguins forecheck. O’Connor spent the final few weeks of the regular season paired with Sidney Crosby and didn’t look out of place on the Penguins’ first line scoring six goals in the Penguins final 12 games. A contract extension with O’Connor would carry a great degree of risk, but plenty of upside as well depending on the version of O’Connor the Penguins could get long-term. He has proven himself to be a solid third-line winger on the Penguins, but if he were their answer on Crosby’s wing, it would open up an opportunity to extend him at a discount for the foreseeable future. At this stage it seems likely the Penguins will wait to see the kind of player that have in O’Connor this season before extending him long-term.

Add/Replace Depth Scoring

The Penguins don’t have many pending free agents as most of their top-end players are already signed for the 2024-25 season. However, they don’t have many impact players in the bottom of their lineup at the moment and desperately need to inject some offensively gifted players into their bottom-six forward group.

The Penguins don’t have much in the pipeline in terms of young NHL-ready forwards, but a few prospects could challenge for roles next season. Valtteri Puustinen appears ready for full-time NHL work and could see time on the Penguins’ third line, as well as recent trade acquisitions Ville Koivunen and Vasili Ponomarev, both of whom were acquired in the Jake Guentzel trade.

Last summer Dubas opted for a defensive first bottom six in hopes that the Penguins top six forwards could carry the weight offensively. While the likes of Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Bryan Rust, Letang and Karlsson provided the offensive punch, the bottom six didn’t offer much help in the scoring department, particularly the fourth line that had several long stretches without a single goal. Lars Eller had a good season as the Penguins’ third-line center, but given his skill set and age he would probably be better suited as the Penguins’ fourth-line center, a move that would push current center Noel Acciari to the wing. 32-year-old Acciari struggled in his first year in Pittsburgh posting just four goals and three assists in 55 games and would benefit from an easier assignment on the wing. Acquiring a third-line center would have a positive ripple effect on the bottom two lines and could be enough to create some additional scoring throughout the Penguins lineup. Pittsburgh’s limited cap space will make an addition like that a challenge, but a few names to keep an eye on would be free agents Chandler Stephenson and Jack Roslovic.

If the Penguins are unable to add a third-line center, a speedy winger such as Anthony Duclair would be a good addition under head coach Mike Sullivan’s system.

Add Top-Six Winger

The Penguins will have roughly $13MM in cap space this summer when free agency opens and they have a need for another top-six winger, particularly if they trade Reilly Smith. The Penguins made a sound move in acquiring Smith last summer from the Vegas Golden Knights, however, the 33-year-old didn’t fit with Pittsburgh and struggled to 13 goals and 27 assists while playing primarily with Evgeni Malkin. If the Penguins are able to move Smith and his $5MM cap hit, it would open up a lot of options in free agency, or potentially the trade market.

A name that has been thrown around has been former Penguin Jake Guentzel who was Crosby’s running mate since breaking into the NHL in the 2016-17 season. Crosby and Guentzel have remarkable chemistry and in theory, the move is a no-brainer. However, the Penguins never fully engaged Guentzel on an extension when he was with the team and signing him would run against Dubas’ comments about the team getting younger.

Another potential reunion that would be available for the Penguins could be Jason Zucker who split last season between Arizona and Nashville. The 32-year-old had 14 goals and 18 assists in 69 games, a steep drop from his final season in Pittsburgh when he tallied 27 goals and 21 assists in 78 games. Zucker had good chemistry with Evgeni Malkin in his final season with the Penguins and his speed would be a good fit in Sullivan’s system.

Outside of former Penguins, one winger that Pittsburgh could target would be Jake DeBrusk of the Boston Bruins. DeBrusk is one of the younger free-agent wingers at just 27 years old and would be a great addition to Pittsburgh’s top-6 forward group. A solid two-way forward, DeBrusk had a down year this season posting just 19 goals and 21 assists in 80 games. The former first-round pick has the talent to be a 40-goal scorer in the NHL but has never topped 27 goals in a season, despite hitting the 25-goal mark on three separate occasions. DeBrusk could be a cheaper option for the Penguins to slide in alongside Sidney Crosby and could provide Crosby with a solid scoring winger during the twilight of his career.

Make The Goalie Splash

The Penguins coaching staff didn’t show much trust in starter Tristan Jarry down the stretch as backup netminder Alex Nedeljkovic started Pittsburgh’s final 13 games and nearly willed the club into the playoffs. Nedeljkovic steadied the Penguins goaltending situation at the end of the season but is a pending unrestricted free agent and likely priced himself out of Pittsburgh with his solid play down the stretch. That leaves Jarry and youngster Joel Blomqvist as the Penguins’ top two options heading into next season and could become a real issue as the Penguins look to get back to the playoffs.

Jarry was signed to a five-year deal last July in a move that was a necessity for the Penguins since there weren’t many better goaltending options available. The 29-year-old started the season well and had some solid stretches of play, but overall, his numbers were pedestrian as he finished the season 19-25-5 with a 2.91 goals-against average and a .903 save percentage. Jarry remains a talented netminder and could probably generate some interest on the trade market but he has a history of playing poorly when the games matter the most and also has a long injury history as well.

Dubas has stated that the Penguins could start next season with Jarry and Blomqvist as their top two netminders but haven’t exactly shown a lot of confidence in Jarry given his lack of play in April of this past season. If the Penguins do opt to move on from Jarry it would not be easy as goaltender trades have been complicated in recent seasons as evidenced by the Flames’ inability to move netminder Jacob Markstrom. The Penguins could look to swap contracts with another club that has a struggling goaltender or attempt to go after a bigger fish such as 2023 Vezina Trophy winner Linus Ullmark, but that would require additional resources that Dubas may not be willing to commit.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.