One of the great things about baseball is that the narratives that surround it, especially the ones about heroes and clutch-ness, don't make any sense. As August turned into September, the Bucs lost three straight to the Brewers, and then managed to take two of three from the Cubs a week later. The Bucs thus played a big role in helping Milwaukee get back into first place.
So what did the Pirates do in their next series against the Brewers? Well, naturally, they beat them in two games out of three, allowing the Cubs to regain a share of the NL Central lead if they win tonight. In baseball, there really are no heroes, at least not in the sense of heroism being an intrinsic quality that results in unusually fantastic performances in important situations. There are just teams and players, some better than others, interacting with one another, winning some here and losing some there. This NL Central race is a perfect illustration of that. The Brewers and Cubs keep trading places, with neither playing terribly well or terribly poorly. It's not that neither team wants to win, it's just that they're both pretty average teams.
In this game, Nyjer Morgan failed to make an important catch that would've kept a run off the board. Freddy Sanchez only went 1-for-4, dropping him a little further back in the race for the batting title. And Ronny Paulino knocked in the winning run. Sometimes, there is no story, and all you can do is say "huh."