Pirates special adviser Gene Lamont aims to be straight shooter with new manager Don Kelly

As he considered coming out of retirement to join the Pittsburgh Pirates as a special adviser to manager Don Kelly, Gene Lamont needed Kelly to get two things straight.

No. 1, Kelly, who’s been ejected twice through his first eight games as skipper, would need to refrain from getting tossed so regularly.

“I told Donnie the other day, I said, ‘Donnie, I want to come back, but if I have to manage two out of every four games I’m not coming,’ ” Lamont joked Monday at PNC Park.

Secondly, Lamont wanted Kelly and general manager Ben Cherington to understand he wasn’t coming aboard to be a sycophantic yes man.

“I’ll give Donnie my opinion,” Lamont said. “I just wanted to make sure that Donnie didn’t want, and Ben didn’t want a guy that’d give them the answers that maybe they thought you wanted to hear. I’m going to give my opinion, and hopefully it’ll help.”

Gene Lamont jokes that he was willing to be a special advisor to Pirates manager Don Kelly on one condition: Stop getting ejected from games. pic.twitter.com/EvRMTnTNLU

— Kevin Gorman (@KevinGormanPGH) May 19, 2025

Both conditions checked out with Kelly and Cherington, so once Lamont ran things by his wife and family and got those necessary OKs, his decision to rejoin the Pirates organization was formalized.

Lamont, 78, who previously coached under Jim Leyland in Pittsburgh twice (1986-1991, 1996) before succeeding him as manager from 1997-2000, will assume a fully traveling role with the Pirates for the remainder of this season.

In light of Kelly’s elevation to manager from bench coach May 8, the Pirates are undertaking a committee approach in filling the position.

Third-base coach Mike Rabelo and Chris Truby, who was elevated to the big-league staff from the manager’s chair in Triple-A Indianapolis, are both taking on some of the duties that usually would fall to the bench manager.

Lamont managed 1,115 MLB games with the White Sox (1992-95) and Pirates, winning AL Manager of the Year honors with Chicago in 1993.

Additionally, Lamont played parts of five big-league campaigns in the 1970s with Detroit and later reunited with Leyland again with the Tigers from 2006-13 as a coach.

The entirety of Kelly’s playing days with the Tigers (2009-14) included Lamont on Detroit’s coaching staff.

Now, the Pirates are hopeful Lamont’s veteran presence will be helpful for Kelly, who continues to get settled as manager.

“He was on board,” Kelly said. “It took (no convincing). When I called him, he was in. For him to be willing to do that, to come out of retirement, to come back to Pittsburgh and jump in the grind with us means the world to me.

“Just a phenomenal baseball guy. Taught me a lot as a player. Looking forward to having him around, teaching the staff and the players what he knows.”

Monday’s game against the Cincinnati Reds, the beginning of a seven-game homestand, marked Lamont’s first game in his special adviser role.

Reds manager Terry Francona, a New Brighton native, couldn’t profess to knowing Kelly well.

However, he was impressed that Kelly picked up the phone to dial Lamont, who was skipper with Chicago when Francona was managing in the White Sox farm system.

“I give him credit already for being smart enough to bring Gene Lamont on board,” Francona said. “I don’t know if Gene can turn on a computer, but I know he has a degree in baseball. And I think that’s a pretty solid move.”

Gene Lamont on joining the Pirates as a special advisor to manager Don Kelly in mid-May, with a 15-32 record and sitting in last place in the NL Central. pic.twitter.com/sb8uHh7FJX

— Kevin Gorman (@KevinGormanPGH) May 19, 2025

Lamont joins a Pirates club (15-32) that’s struggling immensely, in particular to score runs.

The Pirates currently ride a franchise-record 23-game streak of failing to score more than four runs, dating to April 22.

Lamont doesn’t profess to having some magic wand that’ll snap the club out of its elongated offensive funk.

But he still believes the Pirates being able to do so is possible.

“I think we’re a much better team than we’ve played,” Lamont said. “I think the players know that. But you have to do it on the field. You’ve got to make pitches, and everybody knows we’ve got to hit a little better. I think that we will. Sometimes it takes time. But me being here is not going to make our guys hit better. If they hit like I did, we’d be bad. Hopefully we can get it going.

“I know we’ve lost some tough games lately. You’ve got to win tough games. In the big leagues, everybody says play hard. Well, in the big leagues you’ve got to play good. And we have to play better.”

Lamont also recognized his own fallibility.

“Do I have all the answers? I have the answers, but they’re not always right,” he said.

Kelly is under no illusions about there being some daylight between him and Lamont when it comes to the bullpen, using pinch-hitters and runners, making defensive substitutions and the nuances of decision-making in general. But Kelly is appreciative of having Lamont as an easily accessible resource.

“It’s like in anything — we’re never going to agree fully, but I hope that he’s completely honest with me and tells me what I need to hear and not what I want to hear,” Kelly said. “That’s what I need when we’re going through a game, is trying to figure out what’s the right move. When’s the right time to do something? When is it not?

“Whether we agree about the decision, being able to talk about it afterwards as well and see if it was right, if it was wrong, if we make an adjustment. It’s really a game of adjustments as we go forward, and I know (Lamont) is always going to shoot me straight.”