Friday night featured a back-and-forth matchup between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Milwaukee Brewers that ended with a wild pitch walk-off winner.

For all the craziness that happened in this game, one storyline that won’t go quietly into the night is the struggles of the bullpen. Different games have had different poster children for the shakiness of the Bucco bullpen, but last night’s game might feature Tanner Rainey in that spot.

Rainey has been a Pirate for about three weeks. The righty was called up on May 3rd and made his Pittsburgh debut the following day.

Rainey had signed a minor league contract with the Pirates in the winter. He was coming off a 4.76 ERA season with the Washington Nationals and was bringing nearly 200 major league innings of experience with him to the Pirates organization.

The 32-year-old had a solid spring training, but barely missed out on a bullpen job out of camp. However, his work did put himself on a short list for an in-season promotion.

Rainey was hot and cold during his brief stint with Triple-A Indianapolis to open the season. He pitched nine innings for the Indians with a 6.00 ERA and 1.222 WHIP. He allowed only seven hits (with opponents hitting .212 and having a .580 OPS against him) and walked four. He also struck out 12 over that time and picked up a save in his second to last game before the call-up.

That same hot and cold description has followed him to Pittsburgh. Making his debut on May 4th, Rainey struck out a pair in a three-up, three-down seventh inning in an otherwise very forgettable 4-0 loss.

He didn’t pitch again until the tenth, when new manager Don Kelly put him in during the seventh inning of an extra-innings loss to Atlanta.

Rainey surrendered a leadoff single and played the long game to hold the Braves scoreless. A bunt moved that runner to second, and a groundout moved him to third. But with two outs and a runner 90 feet away from home, Rainey was able to strike out Austin Riley.

It was great. Rainey looked really good in his first two games, and having an arm who pitched scoreless innings has been an oddity at certain points this season.

But a day later, when Kelly put Rainey back out there against Atlanta, he imploded.

With the Pirates leading 3-0, Kelly sent Rainey out for the eighth inning, where he was expected to help carry the team to the finish line. Ryan Borucki and Joey Bart had done Rainey a good part of the work already in the eighth. Borucki notched a strikeout, and Bart gunned down a runner trying to steal second.

Atlanta, however, was able to rock Rainey, even with two outs. Riley got the better end of him this time, drilling a groundball single to left field to get on base. His next batter, Matt Olson, launched a double to right field to put two runners in scoring position. Rainey then walked Marcell Ozuna on four pitches, his third batter of the inning. to load the bases.

Rainey had thrown just eight pitches, but allowed three base runners. After Rainey had faced his required three battes, Kelly tried to rescue him and hooked him out of the game. He called on Joey Wentz to secure the final out, but a pinch hit double by Sean Murphy cleared the bases, tying the game. All three of those runs were charged to Rainey, exploding his ERA.

Luckily for him, Pittsburgh did eventually win that game in extras, and Rainey was off the hook for the result.

He was back to solid work over the next few games. Rainey’s next four appearances saw him pitch a combine 3.1 innings and not allow a run. He totaled two strikeouts, one walk, and one hit.

On Wednesday, he earned his first hold of the season, notching the first two outs of the seventh inning. He then plunked pinch hitter Will Benson, and Kelly took him out after that. Benson was thrown out trying to steal second after Caleb Ferguson entered the game.

But on Friday, the bad version of Rainey came back. After ace Paul Skenes put together another terrific start that saw strike out eight and hold the Brewers to one run, Kelly turned to Rainey in a tight game in the seventh.

Putting basically anyone from the bullpen on the round is a risk these days, but going to Rainey in a close game like that was a truly risky swing from Kelly. It didn’t work.

The Pirates’ bullpen inherited a 2-1 lead and the pressure of not blowing yet another Skenes start. It only took four batters to kill the lead, and erase a potential win for Skenes.

Rainey was able to secure a strikeout to lead off the inning, but it quickly spiraled out of control. Rainey walked Jake Bauers, and a single by Andruw Monasterio put runners on the corners.

A Brice Turang single knocked in the tying run and chased Rainey from the game. Jackson Chourio’s single off Dennis Santana charged another run to Rainey before Santana sealed the inning off.

Just like last time, Rainey was lucky and bailed out by his teammates. Pittsburgh tied it in the seventh, tied it again in the ninth, and won it on a wild pitch in extras.

Rainey, meanwhile, was charged with a blown save. His ERA on the season is now 7.94, through eight games and 5.2 innings. Is it a small sample size? Yes. But it’s because that sample size is small that seeing Rainey essentially hand a game away like this twice now is at least a little bit concerning.

He either has it on any given night, or he really, really does not. Of course, he’s not alone in that. Almost every arm on this bullpen has had a blowup on the mound. Chase Shugart, who has had a very good year, was the unfortunate victim of that on Thursday.

Figuring out how many times those off nights will happen for Rainey in 2025 would require him to pitch more than just a few weeks for the Pirates. But after seeing Rainey surrender a lead twice in less than six total innings pitched, will he be more cautious about playing him in close games?

That Braves game wasn’t particularly close, it just spun out of control rapidly. But this Brewers game was tight, and Rainey put them behind on the scoreboard in the final few innings of the game.

It’s hard to find pitchers who can be trusted in any type of leverage situations o this Pirates team. Aside from Santana, who is sporting an ERA of 1.69, you don’t ever truly feel comfortable watching anyone run out from the bullpen to the mound.

I don’t know how much longer Rainey stays on the roster, but it will be interesting to see if a game like this scares Kelly off from deploying him there in the future.

The thing about Rainey is he can look like one of the best relievers on this team during any random inning. He can also look like the worst.