PIRATES

With two runners on base and nobody out in the bottom of the 11th inning and the Pirates clinging to a one-run lead this afternoon, Oneil Cruz said he felt like he was the one on the mound with the nerves he was feeling. Yohan Ramirez had just committed an error to put two runners in scoring position and the pressure was on. 

"My heart was with him," Cruz said via interpreter and major-league coach Stephen Morales. "I was calling pitches in center field. He made that throwing error and I said, ‘Hopefully this doesn’t go against him.’ We were confident we could bounce back and win the game." 

Ramirez could have easily dwelled on the mistake that put the Pirates in danger of losing a crucial inner-division game on the road in a rather hostile environment. He didn't. Instead, he accepted that a mistake was made and instantly flipped the page, retiring Matt Shaw, Alex Bregman and Seiya Suzuki to preserve a dramatic and emotional 4-3 extra-inning win over the Cubs here at Wrigley Field. 

"It was really emotional out there," Ramirez said via Morales. "It felt really good, just as a team, to be able to come through in that situation. And it felt like a whole team effort and happiness as well. From the players, coaching staff, through the clubhouse guys, everybody's sharing the same goal. And it felt really good." 

It was a rather sloppy win for the Pirates, who established a 3-0 lead in the first three innings, despite going a dreadful 2 for 19 with runners in scoring position and leaving 13 runners on base. There were squandered opportunities to add onto the lead and Justin Lawrence and Dennis Santana allowed runs in the latter innings to give up the lead. Still, somehow enough was done to push the Pirates to 9-5 on the season and 4-0 in one-run games. And Ramirez is certainly one to thank for that. 

"When it came down to the wire there at the end, it was just the thought of, 'Hey, they gotta beat us, we aren't going to beat ourselves here,'" Joey Bart told me. "He made two huge pitches. That's seriously a huge situation in a big game to swing the series and he came through."