Frustrations boil over in rain as Astros GM Dana Brown tries to ‘protect the boys'

New York Times

14 hours ago

PITTSBURGH — Dana Brown tries to hide his blowups behind closed doors, but frustrations boiled over during a contentious meeting Thursday with Pittsburgh Pirates officials amid a 3-hour, 22-minute rain delay that preceded his club's 8-2 win at PNC Park.
In one of the most heated public scenes of his two-season tenure as the Houston Astros' general manager, Brown grew agitated during a gathering behind home plate that determined whether the game would be played Thursday night.
Television cameras captured Brown acting demonstratively toward Pirates manager Don Kelly and a slew of other Pirates staffers. Major League Baseball renders the ultimate ruling of whether a game in a delay will be played or postponed, Brown said.
Why is the Astros GM down on the field arguing about the weather with Don Kelly pic.twitter.com/0Bh6tfkdMC
— Platinum Ke'Bryan (@PlatinumKey13) June 6, 2025
'I would have preferred to bang the game just because of the conditions and the length of time and all of that,' said Brown, who used baseball's colloquialism for a postponement. 'I would've preferred to bang it.'
Instead, the game — originally scheduled for 6:40 p.m. ET — began at 10:02 p.m. Houston needed 2 hours, 24 minutes to dispatch the hapless Pirates and increase its American League West division lead to 1 1/2 games.
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Afterward, the Astros gathered in their clubhouse in the wee hours of Friday morning. A game against the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field loomed later that night — a fact that fueled most of Brown's frustration. He repeated multiple times that the team's traveling party would be in bed 'around 3:30 in the morning, if we're lucky.'
'That was my concern. We got a lot of schedule left and so I want to protect the boys,' Brown said. 'My whole point is to protect the players at all costs. I got a little frustrated.
'If we were here tomorrow, it would've been no problem. The fact we had to get on a flight and go to Cleveland, post in Cleveland against a good team, getting in late. I had my ace going, too, in bad weather. I was worried about guys getting hurt. And I showed it.'
Asked whether he regretted the agitation, Brown replied: 'Not at all. It's a natural reaction to being the GM of a club and starting a game three-plus hours after it's supposed to start. Almost four hours, right? On getaway day.'
Pittsburgh and Cleveland are separated by only 134 miles. Although some clubs bus between the cities, the Astros opted to take a charter flight that should take about an hour.
According to the sport's collective bargaining agreement, the latest possible start time for any getaway day game 'shall be determined by taking the portion of the in-flight time that exceeds 2 1/2 hours and subtracting that amount of time from 7 p.m.'
The Astros and Pirates never discussed moving up Thursday's scheduled first pitch because, according to Brown, 'it was always under a 50 percent chance of rain and that's probably why they didn't think about moving it up because they didn't think we'd have a problem.'
Rain did not fall for the first hour and 10 minutes of Thursday's delay, but Brown said he had no interest in trying to start the game at 6:40 p.m. Doing so could've wasted outings from two premier starters: Pittsburgh's Mitch Keller and Houston's Framber Valdez.
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The downpour that ensued at 7:51 p.m. included claps of thunder, at least one lightning strike and produced puddles on the left-field warning track.
At 8:45 p.m., the two managers emerged for a meeting. Rain pelted a tarp still covering the field at PNC Park, but the 'window' existed to play nine innings. Kelly and Houston's Joe Espada talked by themselves for a few minutes before umpires D.J. Reyburn and James Hoye arrived.
As the gathering grew, Brown appeared with the body language of someone boiling. He talked with his hands and appeared agitated throughout a conversation he dominated.
As tensions rose, Reyburn positioned himself between Brown and a Pirates contingent that included Kelly, assistant general manager Bryan Stroh, senior vice president of communications Brian Warecki and PNC Park director of field operations Matt Brown.
'I want to protect all of our players at all costs, and I was frustrated we were starting so late and we couldn't find a window to get a makeup game,' Brown said.
Warecki escorted Kelly away from the discussion after Brown appeared to direct comments toward him and pointed at him.
'I don't have an issue with Don Kelly,' Brown said. 'I think they thought they could play. They're home. I don't have an issue with Kelly at all.'
Espada appeared intent on diffusing the situation, extending his hand toward Kelly. Both were part of the Astros' 2019 coaching staff and remain friends. Kelly was not asked about his interaction with Brown during his postgame news conference.
'Obviously, it's the last game that they're here and trying to find — while they're here, we wanted to play,' Kelly said.
Espada and Brown departed for the first-base dugout moments after the discussion. At that point, Brown said, the teams had still not determined whether to play Thursday's game. Both sides searched for mutual off days when the Astros could return to Pittsburgh and potentially make up the game.
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'We went back in and looked at more dates, tried to see (if) there was any way we could squeeze this game in,' Brown said. 'If you take the liberty of going to look, it's really tough to match us up when they have a day off and we have a day off and play the game.'
The teams share two mutual off days that coincide with both a Pirates homestand and Astros road trip: Sept. 8 and Sept. 22. They could've cut short their All-Star breaks for a one-game showdown July 17, but the Astros begin a six-game West Coast trip in Seattle on July 18.
With no available dates for either club, Pittsburgh's grounds crew emerged to prepare the field for a first pitch Brown never wanted to see. That his team won the game and secured the series soothed some of the frustrations from an often jovial man who rarely is seen without a smile.
'I get fired up behind closed doors usually,' he said as one crept across his face. 'Never out in public.'