Pirates fans have been unfair to Don Kelly during brutal early test

The frustration is understandable. The Pittsburgh Pirates just got swept at home by the St. Louis Cardinals, watched the offense disappear for long stretches and suddenly went from feeling like one of baseball’s better early stories to sitting at .500 with people openly questioning whether this season is already slipping away.

That’s what makes this such an important moment to take a breath and evaluate what’s actually happening around Don Kelly. Because while the Pirates skipper absolutely deserves criticism for certain decisions during the season’s first month, some fans are also being wildly unfair in the way they’re treating a manager who inherited one of the trickiest situations in baseball.

The reaction after the Cardinals series felt less like measured criticism and more like fans looking for someone to blame.

Kelly hasn’t been perfect. No manager is. Some bullpen choices have backfired. There have been lineup decisions people disagree with. The Pirates have also played sloppy baseball at times, particularly defensively, and that ultimately falls on the manager too.

But the idea that Kelly is somehow the primary reason this team hit a rough stretch ignores almost everything surrounding the roster he’s trying to manage.

Pirates fans

This team was never built to be easy to manage.

The Pirates entered the 2026 season with major defensive questions in multiple spots, an unconventional pitching plan and a roster still relying heavily on young players learning on the fly. Kelly is balancing development, workload management and trying to win games immediately — all at once.

That’s especially true with the pitching staff. Outside of Paul Skenes and Mitch Keller, the Pirates are still dealing with starters who have never completed a full major league season in the rotation.

Braxton Ashcraft is still establishing himself. The Pirates are carefully navigating workloads across the board. Jared Jones hasn’t returned yet. The bullpen has been overworked recently because starters haven’t consistently pitched deep into games. And yet when Kelly pulls a starter early to protect him in April, fans act like he’s sabotaging the season.

The reality is the Pirates are trying to survive 162 games, not just win the emotion of one night. That doesn’t mean every move has worked, but it does mean there’s context behind a lot of them.

What also got lost during the Pirates' late April skid was something that players and people around the organization repeatedly mention: the atmosphere around this team is dramatically different than it was in 2025.

Last year’s club often looked tense. Every mistake felt magnified. Players pressed. The mood around the team could spiral quickly when things went poorly. This year’s team feels looser.

That doesn’t guarantee success, obviously. But it matters over a six-month season, and Kelly deserves significant credit for helping create that environment.

The Pirates entered this season with genuine optimism around the clubhouse. Veterans like Brandon Lowe and Ryan O’Hearn helped, certainly, but Kelly’s personality and leadership style have been central to that shift too. Players have consistently talked about communication, trust and confidence.

Now comes the hard part: proving that atmosphere holds up when adversity hits.

Every manager looks good when a team is winning series and the vibes are high. The real test comes during stretches like this one — a five-game losing streak, a brutal sweep, fans panicking and outside noise growing louder by the day.

Internally, the belief hasn't disappeared. People in the clubhouse still believe the roster is better than it showed during the Cardinals series. And Kelly remains a major reason why confidence hasn’t cratered despite how ugly things looked against St. Louis.

That doesn’t mean fans can’t criticize him, of course. But there’s a difference between fair criticism and turning Kelly into the face of every problem the Pirates have.

The Pirates finished April at 16-16 despite injuries, inconsistent offense, defensive limitations and a pitching staff that still requires careful handling. Could they have been better? Absolutely. They also could have been much worse.

For a first-year manager navigating one of the youngest and most complicated rosters in the National League, Kelly has hardly looked overwhelmed.

The season is entering its first real pressure point. The Reds series suddenly feels massive. The losing streak exposed flaws that need fixing. But Pirates fans acting like Kelly is the problem instead of part of the reason this team still believes in itself feels completely backwards.

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