I’m not honestly sure if the way that Clint Hurdle managed his pitching staff today was brilliant or completely terrible, but two huge performances from relief pitchers kept the Pirates close to the Cubs all afternoon in situations where this game could’ve gotten away from them, and that made it enough to pull out a win when Derrek Lee golfed a Carlos Marmol slider into the basket in left field for a two-out grand slam in the top of the ninth inning (check out the win probability swing that Lee’s granny gave the Buccos).
The first reliever to bail the Pirates out today was Chris Leroux, who came in after Ross Ohlendorf completely ran out of gas in the fifth inning, loading the bases and allowing the Cubs to score once and tie the game at two without recording an out before Leroux came in and escaped with only one more run scoring. I had the game on the radio at this point, but Bob Walk was talking about Ohlendorf looking like he was out of gas and struggling a full two batters before he was removed from the game (he was specifically freaking about the 1-0 breaking pitch he bounced to Carlos Pena). Thanks to Leroux, though, the Pirates came out of the game down 3-2 instead of in a much worse position.
It happened again in the seventh when Dan McCutchen started the inning, gave up a single, a walk, a double, and an HBP before being removed. Here’s a quick fun fact: McCutchen’s xFIP is a full two runs higher than his ERA and he should never be trusted in a high leverage situation, 2.80 ERA or not. Chris Resop came into the game with the Bucs down 5-3 and runners on first and second with no outs after the rain delay. He went into Incredible Hulk mode and struck out two of three guys, preserving the deficit at two.
In some ways, it feels like the Pirates got the two things they’ve been missing for a month this afternoon. They had a couple relievers play fireman to keep the game from getting out of hand, then they got a huge hit from Derrek Lee with the game on the line. And even though it’s ultimately meaningless, after a month of miserable baseball, this one felt pretty good.
