Drabek, Patterson Save Pirates’ Day : NL Game 5: Pittsburgh pitchers combine to stop Reds with a 3-2 victory. Cincinnati leads series, 3-2.

PITTSBURGH —  The hug lasted 10 long seconds, the two heroes wrapping their arms around each other as they walked from the first base line to the pitchers’ mound.

Together, Doug Drabek and Bob Patterson had just carried the Pittsburgh Pirates back to Cincinnati. While a stadium rocked and teammates danced, they could think of no better way to share their relief.

“I said . . . well, you just don’t know what to say,” Drabek said quietly. “For me, for Bob, for most guys, this was the biggest games in our career.”

In a contest that featured a dynamic eight innings from Drabek and a dramatic final three pitches from Patterson, the Pirates defeated the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2, Wednesday night to cut the Reds’ lead to three games to two in the National League championship series.

The final two games of the best-of-seven series will be at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium.

But in a game that began with the Pirates overcoming a deficit and ended with a double play as the tying run crossed the plate, the Pirates began believing in themselves again.

Remember Tuesday night when Cincinnati pitcher Jose Rijo declared that the series was “over”? The Pirates have a message for Rijo.

“I think his words were a little premature,” Pirate shortstop Jay Bell said. “Most of the time, if you are leading three games to one, you can say that. But the Reds have to understand, we aren’t like most teams.”

The Pirates proved that Wednesday before 48,221 at Three Rivers Stadium. And their most nervy moment occurred after Drabek showed why he is the favorite to win the Cy Young Award by limiting the Reds to two runs, one earned, in 8 1/3 innings.

His accomplishments were overshadowed when he left the game in the ninth after allowing a leadoff single to Paul O’Neill, a single off the third base bag by Eric Davis and a sacrifice bunt by Hal Morris.

With runners on second and third, Drabek was replaced by Patterson, who had spent part of eight years in the minor leagues before this summer, when he completed his first full major league season.

Owning only six career saves, Patterson was handed the ball and two assignments: First, intentionally walk Chris Sabo to load the bases, and then do anything to keep Jeff Reed from hitting a fly ball to score the tying run.

“I got out there and tried to block everything out of my mind but the catcher’s glove,” Patterson said. “But it wasn’t easy.”

He took care of the intentional walk, but it wasn’t easy, either.

“I’ve seen a guy throw two straight wild pitches on intentional walks in triple A,” Patterson said. “You don’t forget that.”

Then up stepped Reed, and Patterson’s first pitch was a ball, and suddenly he was even more nervous. But he threw a called strike inside, and then another pitch inside that Reed grounded slowly to third base.

Bobby Bonilla, playing his first game at third since Aug. 1 because of Jeff King’s sore back, lunged to his left, grabbed the ball, threw to second baseman Jose Lind, and Lind easily turned the double play to end the game.

The stadium shook and the Pirates’ dugout emptied, with nobody running faster than Drabek, who nearly tackled Patterson.

“There is something special with Doug and I--we came to the Pirates at about the same time, we have been through the same things, and tonight it seemed so natural for us to help win this game together,” said Patterson, 31, who earlier this season saved Drabek’s 20th victory.

Patterson, who was the only Pirate player to cry after they clinched the East Division championship, appeared to be near tears again as he added, “In a game like this, with everybody counting on you--I don’t think anybody can understand what it is really like to come through.”

Nobody, perhaps, except Drabek. Although his regular-season record of 22-6 was considered special. It is also noteworthy that whenever he pitched after two consecutive Pirate losses, he was 6-0, and he was 12-3 in starts after a Pirate loss.

In lowering his playoff earned-run average to 1.65 in two starts Wednesday, that stopper trend has continued.

“Everybody wants to pitch in those games where we need wins,” Drabek said. “I’ve just been lucky that a lot of times when we’ve needed a game, it’s been my turn to pitch.”

Ray Miller, the Pirates’ pitching coach who was worked with such greats in Baltimore as Jim Palmer, Steve Stone and Mike Flanagan, was not so humble.

“He is having the best season of any pitcher I have ever coached, and this is why,” Miller said. “The man just does not panic.”

Neither, apparently, do the Pirates. And in an odd way, they have history as their ally.

Only twice before have Pirates’ teams trailed 3-1 in seven-game series. Both times, in the 1925 and 1979 World Series, they rallied to win.

The larger picture is not so bright. Since the best-of-seven format was adopted for the league championship series in 1985, only two teams have rebounded from 3-1 deficits to advance to the World Series.

“I would still rather be in a Reds’ uniform,” said the Pirates’ Andy Van Slyke, who had a run-scoring triple and a single. “They are still up 3-2. We still have to win two straight games at their place. It’s that simple.”

It wasn’t simple Wednesday.

The Reds scored one in the first. The Pirates answered with two in the bottom of the inning.

Then, in the fourth, some unorthodox Reds’ strategy helped Pittsburgh take a 3-1 lead. Barry Bonds led off with a walk, went to third on R.J. Reynolds’ single to left and scored on a fly-ball out by Don Slaught. However, Reynolds’ hit got past Barry Larkin only because the Reds’ shortstop was covering second base, since Bonds was running on the pitch. Usually, with a right-handed hitter, the second baseman covers second.

The Reds made it 3-2 when Larkin hit a run-scoring double in the eighth, and both teams spent the rest of the game on edge.

“This is my first playoff, and now I can understand what everybody means when they talk about it being so different from the regular season,” Reynolds said. “This is nerve wracking.”

* GOOD TIMING: Bobby Bonilla, moved to third base, starts play to end game. Bob Nightengale’s story, C8.