Meaningless, sure. I mean, these games, the outcomes, the place in the standings, all of it, all of it.

Meaningless.

But to build up towards something potentially more significant, ah, that's never

meaningless. Good morning to you. Good Friday morning. I'm Dan Kovachievich of D.K. Pittsburgh

Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates. It comes your way bright and early every weekday. If you're

into football and or hockey, I also happen to offer daily shots of the other two teams in town that I cover. Those would be

the Steelers and the Penguins. Hope you'll check those out as well. A double header yesterday in

Detroit saw the pirates lose to the Tigers 9 to 2 in game one and then prevail in the nightcap

8 to 4.

On its face, that wouldn't sound like it's, well, other than the run total in game 2,

anything that breaks from the norm.

But let me try to paint it in a different light.

The one that I feel that's fair.

To all concerned, but in particular to Don Kelly,

one of the many benefits to Kelly having not been named interim manager when he took the job.

A month and ago upon Derek Shelton getting fired,

is that he was given real license, a real rope, if you will,

to go ahead and do things the way he wants.

Go ahead and create the culture that he wants.

Go ahead and instill the mindset, the accountability, the general tone that he wants. Now, I've known

Kelly for a lot of years going back to his playing days. And I can tell you that of all the

things that I did correctly anticipate of his tenure as a manager, I didn't see this coming. I didn't see

...