Pittsburgh (AP) – Pittsburgh’s pirates fired Manager Derek Shelton after a turbulent first month of the season that saw the team sink quickly at the bottom of the central division of the National League.
general manager Ben Cherington made the announcement on Thursday. The bank coach Don Kelly will assume the position of Shelton.
The decision occurred with Pittsburgh immersed in a streak of seven consecutive losses, leaving them with a 12-26 mark.
Shelton, hired by Cherington in November 2019 as part of a reconstruction by the owner Bob Nutting, accumulated a 306-440 record in more than five seasons with the pirates.
“Derek worked incredibly hard and sacrificed a lot for more than five years. His family became a large part of the pirates’ family, and we’ll miss that,” Cherington said in a statement.
“He is an incredibly intelligent, curious and motivated baseball leader. I think he was the right person for the work when he was hired. I also believe that a change is now necessary. I wish Derek and his family all the best in his next chapter,” he added.
The pirates, located in the 26th position of 30 MLB teams in terms of expense payroll on the opening day, began the season with the hope of being contenders by having Paul Skenes, the reigning rookie of the year of the National League.
Although Skenes, 22, has been effective and the rotation of opening launchers in general has been stable, the Pittsburgh offensive has languished near the bottom of the circuit throughout the season.
The pirates are in the middle of a complicated section, which began suffering against San Diego and San Luis. The next nine Pittsburgh games will be against three powerful teams of the East of the National League: Atlanta, the Mets of New York and Philadelphia.
Nutting described the first quarter of the season as “frustrating and painful for all of us.”
Kelly, a native of Pittsburgh, spent nine years in the elderly as a Utility player. Kelly has been the pirate banking coach since 2020.
“Donnie is as respected as anyone in our dressing room and in our entire organization. He is a pirate. He carries black and gold in the blood,” Nutting said. “No one is more committed, and nobody loves this team more this city than Donnie. He is the right person to direct our team and help us straighten the course.”
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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.
