Ryan Pressly earns 1st save in nearly 2 months to seal the Chicago Cubs' 3-2 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates
Chicago Cubs reliever Ryan Pressly stepped out of the bullpen in the ninth inning Thursday night looking for his first save since April 13.
Following a disastrous May 6 outing in which Pressly surrendered nine runs, eight earned, without recording an out in the 11th inning against the San Francisco Giants, manager Craig Counsell pulled Pressly from the closer's role.
The 36-year-old right-hander has had plenty of time to do some soul searching since then. But he was fully locked in under the lights Thursday when he retired the side in order to seal a 3-2 Cubs win over the Pittsburgh Pirates at Wrigley Field.
'Sometimes you get beat pretty bad like that and you kind of want to curl up in a little ball and not say anything or do anything,' Pressly said after the win. 'But if you want to prove yourself you've got to go back out there and keep proving to yourself that you're good enough.'
After Counsell demoted Pressly from the closer's role, Porter Hodge briefly took over the job until an oblique injury sidelined him. Since then, Daniel Palencia had served as the closer.
Counsell elected to insert Palencia into the game in the eighth inning Thursday with the heart of the Pirates order due up. Palencia worked a one-two-three inning, which set up Pressly for the save opportunity. It was Pessly's fifth of the season but his first in nearly two months.
Counsell praised Pressly's resiliency in battling through both the adversity and a knee injury. This is a closer who was on the mound for the final outs of the Astros' 2022 World Series championship. A bad outing like the one in early May caught the entire league's attention.
'I think Ryan deserves a ton of credit here for how he's bounced back,' Counsell said. 'If you look at his season, he's had one bad inning. That inning resulted in some changes on our end and he's put up zeros ever since. It's just a lesson, man, to all of us as to what it means to be a professional and how this game, it's going to knock you down. Are you going to stay down or are you going to get back up?'
Pressly has answered that pretty definitively. He hasn't allowed an earned run in 14 appearances since.
In the meantime, he looked to his teammates for help in overcoming that tough outing. Left fielder Ian Happ wrote up a scouting report as if he were going to face Pressly. That helped identify a few tendencies that Pressly has since erased.
Photos: Chicago Cubs beat Pittsburgh Pirates 3-2 at Wrigley Field'You've got to be humble in this game or you're going to get humbled,' Pressly said. 'I got humbled in front of the Cubbie faithful and all of MLB. You've just got to take that and try to have a little bit of humility and just build off of it.'
Pressly closed out what proved to be starter Jameson Taillon's seventh win of the season. Taillon worked 6 1/3 innings, allowing four hits and two earned runs while striking out seven and walking two.
The Cubs took a 3-0 lead following a two-run home run from center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong in the fourth inning and a solo shot from designated hitter Seiya Suzuki in the sixth.
Taillon left the game after giving up a run in the seventh. Righty reliever Brad Keller inherited runners on first and second with one out. He struck out Pirates left fielder Tommy Pham for the second out, but then proceeded to hit a batter, loading the bases. He then allowed a run to score on a four-pitch, bases-loaded walk.
Keller, who hasn't given up an earned run since April 22, locked in and struck out leadoff hitter O'Neil Cruz.
'Brad lost the zone a little bit on the previous two hitters, but he made pitches,' Counsell said. 'That's what you've got to do as a leverage reliever. There's going to be some craziness happen. There's going to be some bad luck maybe or whatever. The next pitch can be super important.'
That paved the way for Palencia and Pressly to close out the eighth and the ninth innings. The three relievers didn't allow a hit, continuing a trend for a bullpen that has been the best in the majors since May 14.
The Cubs opened a 10-game homestand with a win and improved to 42-27.
'Whatever opportunity (Counsell) wants to put me in, I just want to help this team win,' Pressly said. 'Saving games is fun and cool and stuff, but winning's a lot more fun to me. I don't care who's pitching in the ninth, I just want to win.'
On Thursday, Pressly did both.
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