Luis Ortiz, Jose Hernadez shine in extra innings as bullpen boosts Pirates to Opening Day win

Jose Hernandez threw the 0-2 slider, then spun around to watch it when Bryan De La Cruz drove it deep to right field before it landed in the glove of Bryan Reynolds at the warning track.

Hernandez punched his glove then pumped his left fist in the air to celebrate his first major league save, one that came in improbable fashion for the Pittsburgh Pirates in a 6-5 Opening Day win in Miami.

The left-handed reliever was remarkably calm under the circumstances, given that he was protecting a one-run lead with a runner on third base with two outs in the bottom of the 12th inning.

Hernandez got the first batter he faced, two-time batting champion Luis Arraez, to ground out to short. Then he got Josh Bell, who went 2 for 4 and reached base four times, to ground out to third.

“To be honest, after that second out, my emotions went down a little bit,” Hernandez said through interpreter Stephen Morales on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “I was able to be more calm just because I was not the one with the pressure. Now it was on them.”

Talk about pressure. After spending the entire season with the Pirates last year as a Rule 5 draft pick, Hernandez hadn’t made the final cut at spring training and was optioned to Triple-A Indianapolis on March 22.

Yet here he was in Miami, arriving Thursday afternoon and pitching with the game on the line on Opening Day, an emergency replacement when Roansy Contreras was placed on the MLB paternity leave list.

“It was a rush day, for sure,” Hernandez said, “but we’re professional. We get here and find a way to do our job to help the team win, and that’s what happened. It’s an achievement, for sure, just to come here. As a player, that’s what we want. We look for positive results every time, and today was one of those days.”

Hernandez has experienced the flip side. He surrendered a two-out, two-run double to Bell in the seventh inning of a 7-3 loss to the Marlins on Sept. 30, when they clinched an NL wild-card berth at PNC Park.

This time, the Pirates bullpen came to the rescue, as six relievers combined to hold the Marlins scoreless by allowing only one hit over the final 6 1/3 innings, with Hernandez finishing them off.

“Since he got here in the afternoon, he was here on a positive note,” Pirates pitcher Luis Ortiz said of Hernandez. “He was in good spirits, and he went out there and did what he knows to do. He went out there and showed no fear and just completed the job.”

Hernandez credited his predecessors — Josh Fleming, Hunter Stratton, Ryan Borucki, Aroldis Chapman and Luis Ortiz — for putting him in position to play the hero.

“It was so nice to see our relievers in front of me do their job,” Hernandez said. “That helped me. That gave me the fuel to go out there and do the job I did.”

The relief effort started and ended with lefties. After Mitch Keller hit Nick Fortes with a pitch with two outs in the sixth, Pirates manager Derek Shelton turned to a newcomer. Fleming required only one pitch, a 90-mph sinker inside, to get Arraez to ground out to first.

The Pirates then turned to Stratton, who celebrated the birth of his first child, a son named Maverick, by making the Opening Day roster as a non-roster invitee to spring training. The righty hit Bell with a pitch, then got two outs before Jake Burger singled. Shelton brought in lefty Ryan Borucki, who struck out Avisail Garcia to end the frame.

Borucki followed with a 1-2-3 eighth, setting up Aroldis Chapman for the ninth. The seven-time All-Star left-hander made quick work of the top of the Marlins’ order, getting Arraez to fly out to center. Chapman struck out Bell on three pitches — a 99.7-mph four-seamer followed by a 98.9-mph sinker and a 93.4-mph splitter — before inducing a De La Cruz groundout to second to force extra innings.

Afterward, Shelton said two-time All-Star closer David Bednar, who missed much of camp with a lat strain, was not available for the opener because he had thrown a bullpen in Bradenton, Fla.

“We knew that with the way his rehab came back, that today was going to be the day that he was not available,” Shelton said. “Instead of IL-ing him and playing without him for 14 days, we figured we’d play without him for one day.”

That forced Shelton to turn to Ortiz in the 10th. After not making the starting rotation, the 25-year-old right-hander showed that he might have a bright future in the bullpen as a high-leverage reliever.

Where Chapman had two of the top three pitch velocities in the game, per Statcast, Ortiz flashed the upper-90s fastball he threw in his sizzling debut to finish with the other three of the top five velocities in earning the win.

Shelton instructed Ortiz to attack hitters and get ground balls.

“Go right after him. Trust your stuff,” Shelton said. “We saw 98, 99, and I don’t think we’ve seen that in a while. He went right after people, which was really cool.”

Ortiz intentionally walked Jazz Chisholm to start the 10th, putting runners on first and second, then got Burger to ground into a 4-6-3 double play and Garcia to ground out to third. Ortiz did it again in the 11th, intentionally walking Vidal Brujan with one out before getting Christian Bethancourt to hit into a 5-4-3 double play.

That set the stage for Hernandez’s heroics in the 12th.

“My mentality out there was just to get outs and do my best just to help the team,” said Ortiz, who threw nine of his 11 pitches for strikes. “It was so good just to see my fellow relievers come behind me and shut the door. It’s contagious, the energy. That’s what we’re here for, to help the team get the most outs we can, and that’s what we did.”