Donnie Kelly has done a fine job managing the Pittsburgh Pirates since taking over on May 8.<\/p>\n
Manager Derek Shelton was let go following a 12-26 start and being swept by the San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals to cap a seven-game losing streak.<\/p>\n
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A chance was necessary. It needed to be made. An ideal candidate was already in-house. In comes Kelly, a former major leaguer who joined the staff in 2020 and entered the year as the Buccos\u2019 bench coach.<\/p>\n
Since the move, the Pirates have played their best baseball all year. They\u2019re 16-15 under Kelly and have played better fundamentally and defensively.<\/p>\n
Entering Tuesday, the starting rotation ranked second in baseball in ERA (2.66), up from 24th under the former manager.<\/p>\n
Kelly has utilized his bullpen effectively and has made proper calls on when to deploy Dennis Santana. He seemingly isn\u2019t married to a specific pitcher as the closer and makes decisions based on matchups and situations.<\/p>\n
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This is one gripe I had with the previous decision maker, who, most of the time, trusted analytics and the data over a gut feeling.<\/p>\n
One example came on Sunday against Philadelphia. I wasn\u2019t pleased Kelly took Paul Skenes out after 7.2 innings, instead of allowing Skenes to pitch to another batter while under 100 pitches, but going to Braxton Ashcraft was the right call.<\/p>\n
Ashcraft got the final out of the 8th and shut the door in the ninth to complete the three-game sweep. Kelly said he discussed the inning with Skenes before deploying him for two batters, and the original plan was one.<\/p>\n
You have to be adaptable and make adjustments in sports. There hasn\u2019t been \u201cparalysis by analysis\u201d with the current Buccos. They\u2019re stealing bases, bunting runners over, pitching well, and playing better defense.<\/p>\n
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Kelly has been thrown out three times in his first month. I love it. He\u2019s not afraid to stand up for his players and go the extra mile. If he gets thrown out? So be it.<\/p>\n
There have been some questionable decisions Kelly has made, like having Adam Frazier attempt to bunt on Tuesday with two on and no one out in the ninth. Frazier has been the team\u2019s hottest hitter. He did move the runners over on a groundout, but Henry Davis and Ke\u2019Bryan Hayes failed to bring in the tying or winning run.<\/p>\n
One thing\u2019s for certain, the Pirates like playing for Kelly.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone in here loves him,\u201d Brian Reynolds said on Monday. \u201cHe\u2019s fun to play for.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The vibes are better. The mood is better. The Pirates are winning series and performing better on offense.<\/p>\n
Playing devil\u2019s advocate, over the course of a 162-game season, don\u2019t you expect a team to get hot? Not everyone is the 41-121 Chicago White Sox last season or 2025 Colorado Rockies (12-55).<\/p>\n
The Pirates are going to have stretches and moments where they play good baseball. Their pitching is too good to be a bottom-five team in baseball.<\/p>\n
Jon Heyman of the New York Post thinks the Pirates have shown \u201cserious improvement\u201d and that \u201cKelly already has earned an extension.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kelly has done well, but let\u2019s not make a five-week stretch make us forget about the last five years. It\u2019s more of an indictment on the general manager, but Kelly has been on staff since the 2020 season.<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s easy to wonder what the Pirates would look like with new voices in both positions.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s now the main voice in charge rather than playing second fiddle, but it\u2019s still a small sample size.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m encouraged by what Kelly has done and am looking forward to seeing how he manages the group over the last four months, but let\u2019s pump the breaks on an extension.<\/p>\n
The Pirates extended Derek Shelton during his 20-8 start in 2023. Not a great decision. Kelly has only managed for a month. It might turn out great, or it might not. We need time to be the greatest indicator.<\/p>\n
Everything is still fresh. It\u2019s new. I do like how Kelly trusts his gut and his eyes to make decisions. It feels old school when it should have never felt old in the first place. Kelly learned under former Pirates manager Jim Leyland while in Detroit. Kelly has a ton of Leyland in his approach, style, personality, and how he handles the team. Connecting with the players, like Leyland, is vital, and Kelly has done well at taking that to the field every day.<\/p>\n
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I\u2019m open-minded that Kelly can be the guy, but let\u2019s not jump to conclusions. It\u2019s fair to applaud the work he\u2019s done, while wondering what comes next in the remaining 93. Until then, tip of the cap to Don Kelly and the job he\u2019s done turning the Pirates into a much better team and a team people are enjoying to watch again this season.<\/p>\n
More from bucsdugout.com:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donnie Kelly has done a fine job managing the Pittsburgh Pirates since taking over on May 8. Manager…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2402],"tags":[8007,5,5343,49,52,1108,1728,147,6452,22947,8638,4542,4,877,144,10,776,64,4297,18,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-99663","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-pirates","8":"tag-adam-frazier","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-bryan-reynolds","11":"tag-chicago-white-sox","12":"tag-colorado-rockies","13":"tag-dennis-santana","14":"tag-derek-shelton","15":"tag-detroit","16":"tag-don-kelly","17":"tag-donnie-kelly","18":"tag-henry-davis","19":"tag-kelly","20":"tag-mlb","21":"tag-paul-skenes","22":"tag-philadelphia","23":"tag-pirates","24":"tag-pittsburgh","25":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","26":"tag-pittsburghpirates","27":"tag-san-diego-padres","28":"tag-st-louis-cardinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114673566718169036","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}