Maybe what unfolded in the climactic stages of yesterday's Pirates game didn't pack the metaphorical or Biblical wallop of Jonah and the Whale, but Jonah and the Whale went at it plenty hard right there in the seventh inning, and the result leveraged Pittsburgh's fourth consecutive win, the one that lifted the Pirates to 10-10 and into the squishy politics of the early National League Central Division picture.

Jonah Bayliss, the first bullpenner back into the fray after Jim Tracy's relievers pitched nine innings of a 16-inning marathon the night before, took on Houston masher Carlos Lee, the big left fielder with the big rep and the big sloppy deposit of free-agent swag.

Bayliss, not to put too fine a point on it, makes $380,000 a year.

Lee makes $321,000 a week.

You could look it up.

But that stare-down was in the seventh inning, which Bayliss might never have seen had he not successfully high-wired the sixth.

"In a sick and twisted way, it's what relievers look for," said Bayliss of the frightful circumstances that beckoned him into a one-run game in relief of Tony Armas "It's the ultimate adrenalin rush."

Armas had just missed with a 3-2 pitch to Adam Everett to load the bases in that sixth, punching out after five-plus very useful innings in which all Houston managed was a first-inning run that was still the only one on the board. Bayliss thus inherited a bases-loaded, no-out, potential, uh, adrenalin rush.

Brad Ausmus popped Bayliss' 2-2 pitch along the right field line, where second baseman Freddy Sanchez made a pretty running catch and whirled a throw home as the runners held. That's when Astros manager Phil Garner allowed pitcher Wandy Rodriguez to bat, mostly because his own bullpen was just about shot as well from the night before.

Rodriguez, who'd already turned in two highly competitive at bats against Armas from the left side of the plate -- he sent Jason Bay to the track in left with a fifth-inning liner -- for some reason came up and hit right-handed against Bayliss, another right-hander.

"I didn't even know he was a switch-hitter," said third baseman Jose Bautista. "Maybe he thought he was a better contract hitter from the right side."

Whatever. In his only contact against Bayliss, Rodriguez beat an 0-2 pitch into the 6-4-3 double play that ended the inning.

When Jason Bay lined a two-run single to right in the bottom of the inning, Bayliss went back out to protect a 2-1 lead, and back into circumstances nearly as flammable.

The 27-year-old righty, who brought exactly 90 days of major-league experience out of spring training, got Chris Burke to pop out on the first pitch of the fateful seventh, but Mark Loretta walked on a 3-2 pitch and Lance Berkman rifled a 1-0 sinker to right to bring up Lee in the very kind of situation for which the Astros gave the former Milwaukee Brewers star $100 million over the next six years.

"He's a very dangerous hitter," Bayliss said. "In that situation, you don't want to let him beat you with a mediocre pitch."

Bayliss threw ball one, looked in at Lee, and somehow saw not the fearsome right-handed mauler on an early pace to drive in 162 runs, but instead an opportunity for himself: changeup.

Lee pounded it into the earth in front of Bautista, who started the double play that ended the inning, the second critical Bayliss-induced double play ball in two winning innings.

"A good pitch," said catcher Ryan Doumit, whose two-run single in the ninth proved awfully useful as well. "A really good pitch."

It was the kind of pitch people will soon start expecting of Bayliss, if they haven't already. A former minor-league starter the Kansas City Royals converted to a reliever in 2005, Bayliss saved 23 games at Indianapolis last year after the Pirates acquired him in the Mark Redman trade. He didn't allow a run in his first nine appearances this year, and picked up his second victory yesterday at a time when Pirates closer Salomon Torres failed to get through the ninth with a 5-1 lead.

"Any situation I can get into I'm happy for," Bayliss said, swatting away suggestions he might be filling a more vital bullpen function before long. "I closed in Double A and Triple A; I'd love to try it, but it's [Tracy's] decision."

Tracy's nowhere near that point with Torres, but he's awfully appreciative of the way Bayliss has pitched this month.

"This kid's done a terrific job," said the manager. "When you think about where he was a year ago, where he couldn't throw the ball over the plate when he came up in July, well, when he came back in September he sent the message that he was a little different pitcher than we'd seen.

"I thought he was the difference in the game."

Oh yeah. Whale of a job.