Let's Play 1-2/3!

Twenty-seven innings is three games, right?

Well, not so much. The Cubs outlasted the Pirates in 15 innings last night on the heels of a 12-inning win to open the series in Pittsburgh. Despite a series of mini-disasters, the Cubs find themselves the winners of four straight and two games above .500.

The win was particularly encouraging. After letting a win slip away in the ninth and again in the 14th, they didn't let it turn into a loss. Sure, you're supposed to beat teams like the Pirates, but a difference between contender and pretender is the ability to actually do it when there's a hiccup or two in the bullpen and almost every pitch for six innings could be your last.

I'm reminded of the 1986 NLCS. The Mets beat the best of a good stretch of Astros teams in back-to-back long extras, 12 innings and 16 innings. Jesse Orosco gave up a game-tying 14th-inning homer in game 6, but had more left in the tank than the Astros' Aurelio Lopez and eventually won the clincher. Last night, Kevin Hart gave up a game-tying 14th-inning homer of his own, but settled down enough to give the bats one more chance and earn his second relief win in five days.

But relief pitchers aren't used the same way anymore; the five Roger McDowell relief innings that got the Mets to Orosco in the 14th would now be handled by four or five pitchers and start an inning or two sooner. Get past about the 12th inning these days and a lot of teams start to find themselves stuck with whoever's out there come hell or high fastballs.

Even after 14 innings of eight-hit ball, the Cubs still had two starting pitchers in the pen in yesterday's callup Sean Marshall, who pitched the 15th for his first professional save, and Jon Lieber. And while the 2008 Pirates are no 1986 Astros, the Cubs could theoretically have gone into the 20th or 21st inning with a fresh veteran pitcher who would have made most rotations, and I don't think there's another team in either league that could say that.

In other news, the most recent in a sporadic series of Ex-Cubs of the Week is Corey Patterson. Yeah, that Corey Patterson. He's batting .323 for Dusty Baker's Reds and is tied for second in the majors in home runs with four in eight games after a ninth-inning game-tying shot last night off Eric Gagne and the Brewers.