Don Kelly Sends Strong Message in Second Game as Pirates’ Manager

PITTSBURGH — It’s hard to draw many conclusions about the type of manager Don Kelly will be after two games.

Kelly managed his first game on Friday night after replacing Derek Shelton, who was fired on Thursday.

The Pirates snapped a seven-game losing streak for Kelly’s first managerial victory with a 3-2 win at PNC Park in his debut.

Kelly’s second game as Pirates’ manager, however, was cut short. One day after getting his first win, he checked off another first.

Kelly was ejected from the game in the sixth inning of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 3-2 extra-inning loss to the Atlanta Braves for arguing balls and strikes with home plate umpire Clint Vondrak.

The ejection came after a close pitch from Andrew Heaney to Matt Olson was ruled a ball. It wasn’t the first borderline pitch to go against the Pirates, and Kelly had seen enough.

Don Kelly has been ejected in his second game as the Pirates manager

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Though the ejection wasn’t planned, Kelly sent a strong message to his players. He’s going to stick up for his players.

“I think it was just a boiling point and backing your guys, man,” he explained. “These guys are going out and competing. We’re grinding, going out there fighting and having their backs.”

After Kelly was ejected, Heaney came back to strike out Olson and cap off a nice bounce-back outing.

Over his last two starts entering play, Heaney had allowed eight runs in 8.1 innings pitched. This is after the veteran left-hander carried a stellar 1.72 ERA through his first five starts of the season.

In Saturday’s loss to the Braves, Heaney allowed two runs on four hits in 6.0 innings.

In addition to his solid performance, Heaney was happy to see his manager stick up for him.

“I think everybody felt it building as the game went on,” said Heaney. “I’m not somebody that likes to have those conversations in the game. It’s just not really my personality. I want to go out there and pitch and deal with the circumstances as they are, as they’re happening, so I appreciate when I feel like I’m not really in a position to sort of vocalize those things. That somebody can pick up that slack for me, I appreciate it.”

Kelly played for Hall of Fame manager Jim Leyland, and the two share a close bond. Leyland was known as someone who always had his players’ backs, and two games into his tenure, Kelly started his campaign to have a similar reputation.

Next Man Up?

Kelly’s ejection created some interesting ripple effects.

Typically, when a manager gets ejected, the team’s bench coach takes over. Kelly did as such while serving under Shelton multiple times.

The problem? The Pirates don’t currently have a bench coach. Kelly was promoted from bench coach to manager, and the team is still sorting through options on how to take over his previous role.

In Kelly’s absence, third base coach Mike Rabelo served as acting manager. He received some help from pitching coach Oscar Marin and hitting coach Matt Hague.

Rabelo was certainly thrown into the fire. The game went 11 innings, and the Pirates used their entire bench as well as five of their eight relief pitchers.

Kelly was happy with how Rabelo handled things.

“First time for him doing it, he did pretty well,” Kelly said. “Especially in a close game, getting (Ji Hwan) Bae in there, our guys battled, had good at-bats, tied it up but unfortunately came up a little bit short.”