Kelly ejected in 2nd game as manager ... so who managed the Pirates?!

PITTSBURGH -- Now managing the Pittsburgh Pirates is … wait, who actually is managing the Pittsburgh Pirates?

On Thursday, the Pirates dismissed Derek Shelton as the club’s manager and elevated bench coach Don Kelly. The Pirates won Kelly’s first game as skipper on Friday, but the real shenanigans took place in the sixth inning of Saturday's 3-2, 11-inning loss against the Braves at PNC Park.

With Andrew Heaney on the hill, Kelly started barking at home-plate umpire Clint Vondrak after a pair of borderline calls did not go the Pirates' way. A mic caught Vondrak saying “[I'm] not going to listen to it anymore.” Kelly evidently said one more thing and was tossed from the game.

"Obviously, I just disagreed with a few of the calls along the way, and I'm always going to protect my guys,” Kelly said afterward. “That was really the extent of it."

The Pirates’ issues with the strike zone weren’t limited to just that sequence. Bryan Reynolds was later ejected after taking a called third strike to end the seventh inning, too. As Heaney would say about Kelly’s ejection, “I think everybody felt it building as the game went on.”

Normally, managerial duties would fall to the bench coach after the manager is ejected, but the Pirates are currently operating without a bench coach after Kelly’s promotion. On Friday, Kelly leaned on hitting coach Matt Hague and pitching coaches Oscar Marin and Brent Strom to fill the typical duties of a bench coach.

On Saturday, though, third-base coach Mike Rabelo took over as acting manager following Kelly's ejection. Rabelo has been with the organization since the 2020 season and was a Minor League manager in the Tigers’ farm system from 2014-19.

Kelly said pregame he hoped to have the bench coach position filled in the coming days, saying it could be either an internal or external candidate.

The Pirates were able to rally with Rabelo in charge, forcing extra innings after Matt Gorski legged out an RBI infield single in the eighth to score pinch-runner Ji Hwan Bae, who stole a base earlier in the frame. However, a Chase Shugart wild pitch resulted in the deciding run coming home in the top of the 11th.

Manager ejections are not an official statistic, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, so we can’t say with certainty that Kelly earned an ejection faster in his managerial career than anyone else. They were able to confirm, however, that none of the other 29 active managers were tossed that quickly (the Dodgers’ Dave Roberts was ejected in his sixth game). Kelly is the only manager since at least 2010 to be ejected within his first three games at the helm.

One of Kelly’s biggest influences in baseball is Hall of Fame manager Jim Leyland, whom he played for with the Tigers for four seasons. The two have talked since Kelly took over as manager, and while Leyland has offered a lot of advice over the years, how to get thrown out of a game isn’t on the list.

“I got to see a few of his, but he did not offer any advice on anything like that,” Kelly said with a smile.