Pittsburgh Pirates manager Don Kelly intimately understands why the team's fans are upset.

Kelly is a fan and has been his whole life. The Pirates' heartbreaking Game 7 loss to the Atlanta Braves in the 1992 National League Championship Series still haunts Kelly. The pain he felt as a 12-year-old boy growing up in the Pittsburgh suburb of Mount Lebanon, Pa., has never completely gone away.

Kelly made his major-league debut as a player in 2007 with the Pirates before spending most of his nine-year career as a utility player with the Detroit Tigers. Kelly joined the Pirates as their bench coach in 2020 and stayed in that role until he was elevated to manager to replace Derek Shelton on May 8.

The Pirates extended Kelly's expiring contract earlier this week.

Being a Pirates fan has been a frustrating experience in recent years, as the team has had seven consecutive losing seasons and 29 in the last 33 years.

"They're passionate. They're relentless," Kelly said of the fanbase. "It's going to be on both sides. I know that when we are winning here in Pittsburgh, the fans are going to be there. We also hear it whenever we're not doing the things that we need to do. That's what drives me, that is what drives us every single day to be the best version of ourselves, to be the best version out on the field and to work tirelessly towards bringing winning baseball back to Pittsburgh, which we are going to do."

The Pirates believe that Kelly is the man to lead them back to winning ways. The Pirates haven't been in the postseason since 2015, when they played in the National League Wild Card Game for the third consecutive season.

After a 71-91 record this year, the Pirates aren't trending in the right direction. However, they did go 59-65 under Kelly after starting the season 12-26.

"The expectations are high," Kelly said. "The expectations are high going forward from here on out. I take responsibility in that, leading the charge in that."