As a heavy downpour fell late Sunday afternoon, a bolt of lightning flashed through the skies above PNC Park.
At that precise moment, Josh Bell struck Dan Jennings' 89.4-mph four-seam fastball, absolutely crushing a line drive, sending it through the raindrops and deep into center field and, most importantly, over the head of Milwaukee's Lorenzo Cain.
Later, Clint Hurdle would comment that it was like something straight out of "The Natural."
Which it was. Except in Hollywood movies, Bell might have homered. And if he didn't, the winning run would have been scored by someone other than the slowest position player on the team, including the catcher.
Of course, that's exactly how Sunday's wild, you-had-to-be-there-to-believe-it 7-6 win played out for the Pirates.
Down to their final strike in the ninth inning, they came back to tie. Down to their final out in the 10th, they came back to win.
It was their eighth victory in their last nine games and they became the first team in Major League Baseball to sweep a five-game series since 2006. It was the first time that the Pirates had swept a quintet in 22 years.
For a team that is teetering on the outer edge of playoff contention, it was a wonderful ending to the unofficial first half of the season and headed into the All-Star break as Bell would explain in the -- as they say, "lit"-- clubhouse:
And the party started in a most unlikely fashion.
After Milwaukee had taken a 6-5 lead in the top of the ninth off Tanner Anderson, Gregory Polanco hit a soft one-out single through the hole between first and second. After Elias Diaz flew out in foul territory on a nice catch from Brewers first baseman Jesus Aguilar against the railing, Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell wisely called on the left-handed Jennings to face the left-handed hitting Moran, who had just one hit in his last 18 at bats against left-handers and was hitting .179 on the season against southpaws.
But as Jennings reached the mound for his warmup tosses, the skies opened up and sent what was left of the 17,583 in attendance scurrying for cover, including Moran. He went back to the shelter of the dugout but quickly emerged after Hurdle opted to stick with the lefty over Jacob Stallings, the only right-handed bat left on the bench.
The rain, Moran says, actually helped him do more than cool off from the 90-degree heat.
"I've been kind of pulling off (lefties), consistently throughout the series, just tried to stay in on him," he was saying. "When the rain starts pouring down, it's kind of easy to simplify it and get a pitch to hit and not try and do too much. Just kind of simplified things."
On Jennings' 1-0 pitch, Moran, who's been hitting .353 the last week, singled to left-center to keep hope alive. That brought up Bell, who is hitting hotter than anyone on the team. He had been 8-of-21 in his last seven starts. Thing is, the switch-hitter was batting right-handed where he's batting 45 points lower.
No matter. On another 1-0 count, Bell jumped all over Jennings:
“I was just looking for a pitch to hit, a pitch to drive," Bell said. "I got it and … I don’t think (Cain) thought it was hit that hard, so he kind of went across. I knew I got it.”
From 90 feet away, Polanco trotted in with the tying run and somewhere, well behind him, Moran took off from first. Actually, "took off" might be a bit of an exaggeration. With Moran, it's more like he lumbered through the mud.
With the game already tied and the ball wet, third-base coach Joey Cora didn't hesitate to wave Moran around third just as Cain's throw reached the cut-off man. Brewers shortstop Travis Saladino threw a two-hopper to catcher Erik Kratz at the plate and the throw beat Moran by at least 12 feet. But funny game this baseball is, the ball somehow squirted through the Brewers' catcher's five-hole as Moran slid in with the winning run.
To be fair, the soft-spoken third baseman with the big red beard had places to be. He had a Sunday night plane to catch to his home in Palm Beach, Fla.
"In my head, I'm coming down from third base, it was just like, 'Man, please get in there, please get in there,'" Moran was telling me after the party started to die down in the home clubhouse. "And you see him kind of set up like he's going to catch it and I was like 'Oh, shoot.' And I saw it go by and I was like, 'Thank God,' it got by him and I got in there."
Given the way the Pirates have played of late, divine intervention can't be completely ruled out.
I mean, how else to explain their ninth inning, too?
Now, David Freese has certainly had some really big hits in his career and in games of far, far greater importance. He's kind of a legend in his hometown of St. Louis because of it. But Freese's heroics on Sunday were perhaps his most memorable in a Pittsburgh uniform.
The Brewers had just put up a three-spot on Joe Musgrove, who was running on fumes in the eighth inning. His 106th and final pitch of the afternoon went for a bases-clearing triple to Brett Phillips, who had been 0-for-3 on Sunday against the Pirates' starter:
Still by staying in as long as he did, Musgrove spared an overworked bullpen.
"It sucks to give up five, it sucks to not get a win," explained Musgrove, who went 7.2 innings while striking out five and walking four to take a no decision. "But I think what I did for the team was more important than anything I could have gotten out of it for myself."
It was a tough break for Musgrove. In the third inning, he reached base while trying to bunt a single, and Corey Dickerson followed with a two-run homer, which gave the Pirates an early 2-0 lead. In the fourth inning, he plunked Aguilar as the NL's leader in home runs was crowding the plate.
"He's just a super-competitive person and when you're that competitive and driven to be good, you tend to work at all aspects of your game," Dickerson was telling me of Musgrove.
In the bottom of the ninth with the Pirates trailing, Freese rewarded Musgrove's effort. Jordy Mercer grounded into a 5-4-3 double play but it allowed Moran to score and pull Pittsburgh back to within one.
Down 1-2 against Milwaukee right-handed reliever Corey Knebel, Freese got hold of a 98.3-mph four-seamer that he hit high off the Clemente Wall for a triple to score Bell:
Along with Mercer, Dickerson, Francisco Cervelli and Josh Harrison, who left Sunday's game in the sixth inning with hamstring discomfort, Freese is one of five veterans whom the Pirates are shopping before the July 31 deadline. The 35-year-old and 2011 World Series MVP's presence and leadership in the clubhouse doesn't go unnoticed, certainly not by his manager:
Now, in a real Hollywood movie, Freese's triple should have been the happy ending. Fade to black and roll credits. But that, like everything else on Sunday, didn't got quite according to the script.
The Brewers went ahead in the 10th when Hurdle, out of bullpen options, turned the ball over to Anderson, who was promoted earlier in the day when Austin Meadows was sent down.
He gave up a pair of walks and the go-ahead run on Phillips' single up the middle. But as bad as that sounds, that's nothing compared to his last outing, when he gave up six runs on eight hits in his MLB debut back in the July 2 debacle at Dodger Stadium.
Yet somehow, someway, and thanks in large part to Bell, Moran, Freese, Musgrove and others, Anderson went down as the winning pitcher of record. He even had the ball that slipped through Kratz's legs sitting in his locker stall to prove it.
"Getting the first win was amazing," Anderson told me. "Not how I drew it up, obviously."
Sitting on the bench in the dugout, Anderson says he only got a small glimpse of Moran scoring the winning run.
"Everyone was jumping up," he said. "I was trying to look though everything. It was an awesome moment charging the field. That's what you play for .... Bell hit that ball pretty well."
Yes, yes, he did.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY