Tim Benz: 45 years later, remembering how the potent 1979 Pirates pitched their way to a World Series comeback

Thursday marks the 45th anniversary of the 1979 World Series championship for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The franchise hasn’t won one since. In the second half of our two-part series remembering that title run, we flashback to an overlooked aspect of that Fall Classic.

When most baseball fans think back to the World Series-winning Pirates of 1979, the offensive stars come to mind.

Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, Bill Madlock, Bill Robinson, John Milner, Phil Garner.

But when it comes to the actual World Series itself, it was pitching that turned the tide and brought a championship to Pittsburgh.

As individuals, the pitching staff had plenty of memorable figures. Jim Bibby and John Candelaria made All-Star games and pitched no-hitters during their careers. Bert Blyleven was inducted into the Hall Of Fame (mostly for his work as a Minnesota Twin). Kent Tekulve was one of the most unique closers in baseball history.

For some reason, though, the collective effort of the pitchers during the last three games of that ‘79 World Series comeback against the Baltimore Orioles largely goes underdiscussed.

After getting down 3-1 in that best-of-seven, Baltimore scored only two runs over the final three games as the Pirates won 7-1, 4-0 and 4-1.

“Almost the whole staff pitched,” Game 2 winner Don Robinson said. “It’s not like we had any 20-game winners. But in the last three games that we played, they didn’t get more than one run. When Chuck Tanner came in after Game 4, he said, ‘Don’t worry about it. We are going to win this thing because we are going to start playing like the Pirates are supposed to play.’”

For a (slightly) younger generation of Pirates fans, we still feel the pain of the 1991 National League championship series, when the Atlanta Braves went to Three Rivers Stadium and pitched back-to-back shutouts over the final two games to come back from a 3-2 series deficit.

The end of the ‘79 series was pretty close to the same thing, spread out over three games, as the Pirates’ arms silenced the Baltimore bats for 25 of the final 27 innings.

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“Our pitchers really came through,” said shortstop Tim Foli. “It’s nice to have a lot of hits. But teams that win the World Series have great pitching. We had great pitching in that series.”

The series didn’t start well for the Pirates staff. Baltimore scored five runs off of Bruce Kison in the first inning of Game 1 and held on to win 5-4. Strong work from the combination of Blyleven, Robinson and Tekulve outlasted Hall of Famer Jim Palmer in a 3-2 victory in Game 2 in Baltimore. However, the Orioles exploded for victories of 8-4 and 9-6 in Pittsburgh to put themselves on the brink of a title.

In Game 5, manager Chuck Tanner turned to Jim Rooker as the starter. He had logged 3⅔ shutout innings in Game 1 in relief of Kison to help keep that game close. In his Game 5 start, Rooker allowed just one earned run over five innings. Then Blyleven closed the game with four shutout innings, scattering three hits and a walk.

Over three postseason outings that October, Blyleven was 2-0 with an ERA of 1.80.

“We believed in ourselves,” Blyleven said. “We knew that we could play better than we did in the games that we did against the Orioles. We needed some breaks. Good starting pitching and timely hitting.”

The last part of that equation happened with the Pirates’ bats once Blyleven came into the game trailing 1-0. The lineup scored seven times over the last three innings to get the win and move the series back to Baltimore.

Game 6 was a showdown between Palmer and an aching Candelaria, who was dealing with a bad back that had sidelined him earlier in the season.

“Everyone is hurting at the end of the year,” Candelaria said. “You suck it up, and you take your (butt) out there, and you go, and you worry about it later. Take some aspirins. You go out there. You do what you have to do.”

Despite his pain, Candelaria threw six shutout innings, matching Palmer frame-for-frame as he did the same to the Pirates. It wasn’t until a seventh-inning rally when Parker and Stargell picked up RBIs, driving in Omar Moreno and Foli to take a 2-0 lead. Then Bill Robinson and Moreno got RBIs of their own to give Tekulve some breathing room to pick up his second save of the series, a three-inning effort on his part.

As for Game 7, everyone remembers Stargell’s sixth-inning home run.

But it was all hands on deck for the staff.

“The difference with Game 7 was that now it was win or go home for both teams,” Tekulve said. “All of a sudden, the Orioles, who were supposed to have had this thing wrapped up, were in the same box we had been in for a while.”

Bibby started and left with a 1-0 deficit after four innings. Rich Dauer’s third-inning homer was his only blemish.

Robinson got two outs in the fifth, but also walked pitcher Scott McGregor and gave up a single to Doug DeCinces. Grant Jackson came in to get a pop-out from Al Bumbry to end the threat. Jackson pitched two more innings of perfect relief in the sixth and seventh, got the first out of the eight, but then walked two batters. Tekulve got out of that jam and then worked a 1-2-3 ninth to secure the victory, getting Pat Kelly to fly out to Moreno in center field to touch off the jubilant celebration.

“Everybody understood their job. Guys did their job. What we structured, what we planned on achieving, nothing was going to stop us,” Parker said.

By the end of the series, Jackson had pitched in four games and didn’t allow a run. Tekulve pitched in five of the games, saved three and didn’t allow a run in four of his five outings, taking the loss in Game 5. Rooker allowed only one earned run in 8⅔ innings pitched. Blyleven allowed only two runs over 10.

“When we got to Baltimore, everybody was raving about their group with Palmer, Scotty McGregor, Mike Flanagan, Tippy Martinez,” catcher Steve Nicosia said. “They were great. But I thought our pitching was better. As much as we hit, we had great pitching.”

It’s been 45 years since the Pirates have won a World Series, a League Championships Series, or even a playoff series of any kind. The franchise can boast just one wild-card game win in 2013 when Johnny Cueto dropped the ball.

Thankfully, that’s something no one on the Pirates pitching staff did over those last three games in October 1979.

LISTEN: Pirates shortstop Tim Foli discusses his memories of the 1979 World Series.