Kelly explains pulling perfect Jones, ‘no way’ to keep him in

PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – There was no apology, no second-guessing. The Pirates mindset was they were not going risk the health of Jared Jones no matter the situation.

“Coming off of surgery and going five-ups,” said Pirates manager Don Kelly postgame. “I mean, we actually pushed him an extra inning there, he was throwing the ball so well and that sucks, Under normal circumstances, perfect game, he’d continue to go. Coming off a surgery and everything, you just can’t push him there.”

As a life-long baseball fan, then player, now manager, Kelly asked if he understood the frustration from the fans.

“Yeah, it’s a tough one, man, and I think that we’ve talked about it before,” Kelly said. “Health is the most important thing, winning the game and then personal accomplishments, third, and wanting guys to stay healthy. Health is the number one thing with these guys because we need Jared for the rest of the season throwing the ball like that. Trying to push him right now when he’s only had five-ups, there’s just no way.”

The follow up was if he was tempted to just ride his starter who hadn’t allowed a baserunner through six innings with only 77 pitches, which matched a season high.

“No, there wasn’t,” Kelly said. “His health is too important and having not even approached anything like nine innings and him at 80 pitches in essence already, you’re looking at 120 coming off of surgery, there was no way.”

For Jones, there were smiles postgame. Where the last time he stood at his locker in front of reporters after a start and discussed being lit up and needing to be better. This is more of what he expects out of himself.

He understood the decision to leave after six innings.

"It does suck,” Jones said. “Something's cool coming on, but I'm on what, my eighth start off of surgery? I completely understand it and it is what it is."

Bigger picture for Jones was he felt like a major contributor to the rotation after 15 months of watching.

"It was fun,” Jones said. “Felt good the whole game. It was just fun playing baseball."

How he did it?

"Just went back to the bread and butter: fastball-slider,” Jones said. “One changeup, but fastball-slider the entire game and just kind of felt like myself out there again."

Jones started off with 10 straight fastballs and said he trusted catcher Henry Davis but did wonder ‘when he was going to click another button’ for a different pitch. But it worked, and so did Jones.

“I felt the best I have all year."

“Everything was working,” Kelly said. “Fastball velo was up, slider was really good. I don’t think he even threw too many changeups (he threw one changeup). The slider was so good and the fastball, the fastball command was elite.”

Even with all that, there was no way Jones was taking a perfect game into the seventh.