There was a moment Thursday afternoon at Chase Field when it felt like the Pittsburgh Pirates were headed toward a frustrating loss instead of another series win.

Mitch Keller couldn’t find the zone. The command wasn’t there. Arizona was squaring him up early, and after falling behind on eight of the first 13 batters he faced, things were starting to trend in the wrong direction fast.

Then Joey Bart stepped in. Not with a big swing — though he eventually provided that, too — but with a message.

Joey Bart helped Mitch Keller find his command in Pirates series finale vs Diamondbacks

Keller described his first three innings against the Diamondbacks as “pretty sporadic,” which might have been putting it mildly. Adrian Del Castillo had already driven in a run with an RBI single in the first. Corbin Carroll added a solo homer in the third. Keller was constantly pitching behind in counts, laboring through innings instead of dictating them.

That’s usually a recipe for disaster, but Bart pulled Keller aside between innings and challenged him.

“I told him, ‘Let’s go. Let’s do better.’ In a nice way,” Bart told reporters afterward.

The Pirates catcher knows Keller well enough now to understand how to push the right buttons. Some pitchers need technical adjustments. Others need calming down. Keller, apparently, needed confidence.

Suddenly, the game flipped. Keller started attacking the strike zone. From the fourth through the sixth innings, he retired nine consecutive Diamondbacks hitters and looked like an entirely different pitcher from the one who stumbled through the opening frames.

By the time Don Kelly lifted him after a leadoff single in the seventh, Keller had turned a shaky start into yet another quality outing: six-plus innings, two earned runs, four hits, two walks and four strikeouts on just 84 pitches.

If Keller melts down early, Thursday probably looks very different. Instead, the Pirates settled in, Zac Gallen finally cracked in the fifth inning, and Pittsburgh rallied for a 4-2 win to secure its fourth consecutive road series victory against a National League opponent for the first time since 2015.

Bart helped in more ways than one, too. He went 2-for-4 with a solo homer, continuing what has quietly been a better stretch offensively as of late.

But Thursday served as a reminder that catchers impact games in ways the box score never fully captures. In helping Keller reset before he spiraled, Bart may have prevented the game from unraveling entirely.