After 4 straight 1-run games, Pirates hope to build on early days of Don Kelly's tenure

When the Pittsburgh Pirates fired manager Derek Shelton on May 8, staff ace Paul Skenes was blunt when asked the next day for his reaction.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t shocked,” he said. “… Someone’s got to be held accountable, and, unfortunately, right now, it’s him. That’s just kind of how it goes, but I don’t know that it fixes the root of the issue, which is we need to play better.”

Those were all fair observations from Skenes, and he had some more that he revealed following the Pirates’ 4-3 walk-off road loss to the New York Mets on Monday.

This time, the question put to Skenes was whether things feel any different under Shelton’s replacement, Don Kelly.

“Maybe a little bit,” Skenes said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “I think with stuff like this, you kind of have to wait and see if anything changes. He’s been good — don’t get me wrong. He cares about us as players, He makes good decisions, good game planning and all that. But we’ll see.”

Entering Tuesday, Skenes and the Pirates are now four games into Kelly’s managerial tenure.

The club managed to win its first series with Kelly at the helm, taking two of three from the Atlanta Braves at PNC Park last weekend.

That was an accomplishment in and of itself, given the last series won by the Pirates had been about three weeks prior on the road at the Los Angeles Angels.

However, the Pirates (14-28) were back in the losing column Monday night after their series-opening defeat to the Mets.

“Just proud of our guys, going out there and playing like they did tonight, scratching and clawing and finding a way to battle,” Kelly said postgame. “It was an exciting game, just came up a little bit short.”

Kelly is now 2-2 as manager.

But notably, every game that he’s managed the Pirates has been a one-run affair, with both losses, including Saturday in 11 innings to Atlanta, coming via walk-offs.

The Pirates have a long way to go under Kelly, whom general manager Ben Cherington has entrusted to manage the remainder of 2025. But already, through a handful of contests, Skenes offered some thoughts on what he’s seen with Kelly’s decision-making.

“He doesn’t make decisions without having all the details and all the data, so if he makes a decision and it doesn’t go our way, you can sleep at night because you know he put us in the best position to win,” Skenes said.

One of those decisions that Kelly’s made repeatedly is using the speedy Ji Hwan Bae as a pinch-runner.

When Bae entered Monday’s game in the ninth inning (eventually coming around to score the game-tying run), it marked three consecutive contests he’d served as a pinch-runner.

The first two, Saturday and Sunday against the Braves, Bae recorded stolen bases.

Kelly also green-lit a double steal during Sunday’s 4-3 win over Atlanta, directly setting up a run after Ke’Bryan Hayes and Jared Triolo successfully swiped bags.

DOUBLE STEAL! THAT'S DONNY BALL!

And the Buccos score on the next pitch ???? pic.twitter.com/2qBN4MdY3y

— SportsNet Pittsburgh (@SNPittsburgh) May 11, 2025

More subtle decisions by Kelly were also on display Monday, as Isiah Kiner-Falefa, fresh off the injured list, was inserted at sixth in the batting order, whereas Shelton had largely deployed him in the nine-hole.

Shelton also appeared largely hesitant to call upon 38-year-old Andrew McCutchen for starts in the outfield.

But Kelly interestingly started McCutchen in left field Monday in New York, marking the first time McCutchen had played the position in a Pirates uniform.

McCutchen, who starred in center field during his first stint (2009-2017) with Pittsburgh, moved to right field briefly in his final season before being traded to the San Francisco Giants in early 2018.

And it had not been since 2022 with the Milwaukee Brewers that McCutchen played a game in left.

Yet McCutchen handled himself perfectly fine, even making one nice play in the second inning to cut off a Mark Vientos liner into left-center field, preventing a potential double.

Ultimately, Kelly is working with the same deck of cards as Shelton.

It’s probably fair to assume that no one in the clubhouse, nor in the front office, expects him to work any miracles, given he inherited a club deep underwater so early into the season.

At the same time, so far, the Pirates have enjoyed a competitive clip of games under his watch, with Kelly showing some finesse in the manager’s chair looking at lineup-related and in-game decisions he’s made.

But for Skenes, the players on the field suiting up every night are going to play the biggest role in generating any sort of momentum towards a reversal of fortunes moving forward.

“We just have to keep going out there one pitch at a time and executing at a high level,” Skenes said. “Obviously, we went on a seven-game skid and then we weren’t winning a whole lot at the beginning of the year because we weren’t executing. We just have to get back to that.”