The Pirates the past two weeks have made moves not only on the .500 mark -- yes, we all know that's not their real goal -- but also, in some ways, on contending in the National League Central Division.

If they're to get closer in both areas, a lot could depend on their closer -- young Matt Capps.

And, in that regard, they must hope they can avoid the recent misfortunes division mates Milwaukee and St. Louis have had with their closers.

The Brewers' Eric Gagne, once a lights-out, the-party's-over shutdown finisher with the Los Angeles Dodgers, has wobbled a bit as Milwaukee's $10 million ninth-inning specialist.

So much so that just a weekend ago, he was out as the Brewers' closer -- per his request.

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• Sunday's Box score
• Statistics
• Standings

Today

• Game: Milwaukee Brewers vs. Pirates, 7:05 p.m., PNC Park.
• TV/Radio: FSN Pittsburgh, WPGB-FM (104.7).
• Pitching: LHP Manny Parra (1-2, 5.03) vs. LHP Paul Maholm (2-4, 4.94).
• Key matchup: Bill Hall vs. Maholm. The Brewers' third baseman, 8 for 58 in May, perhaps could use a look at Maholm, against whom lifetime he's 8 for 14 with two home runs and seven RBIs.
• Of note: Again, Maholm's home/road splits come into play. In four starts at PNC Park this season, Maholm is 2-0 with a 2.05 earned run average. In four road starts, he's 0-4 (8.57).

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"I don't deserve that ninth inning right now," Gagne said after permitting St. Louis to score twice in the ninth to beat the Brewers, 5-3, May 10. "It's embarrassing. Closing is an emotional job. It's a roller coaster. You do good, you're a hero. You do bad, you're a zero."

Manager Ned Yost, mindful of Gagne's five blown saves, gave the right-hander a day or two away from the hero/zero pressure before re-installing Gagne as his team's closer.

However, Yost certainly knows he'll have to keep a close eye on his closer.

"Closers -- like everybody else -- have a lot of ups and downs," said Yost, who watched Derrick Turnbow have many ups and downs as Milwaukee's one-time closer. "There's something about being on that mound in the ninth inning. It takes a certain mentality to do it. It's three outs -- but it's much more than three outs."

Former Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon, who watched some harrowing ninth-inning roller coaster rides provided by former closer Mike Williams, knows that closer job well.

"It takes a different animal to pitch the ninth," McClendon said back in the Williams days. "Those are the toughest three outs in baseball."

Case in point? Just the night before Gagne's meltdown -- May 9.

That's when the Cardinals' Jason Isringhausen blew a save for the fifth time, yielding two runs in the ninth to give the Brewers a 4-3 win.

Isringhausen, owner of 292 major league saves, said afterward he pitched "like a second-grader."

Cardinals manager Tony La Russa felt for Isringhausen.

"It's a unique role," La Russa said of the closer's job. "When you come in [the clubhouse] after a game like [that], you come off the field knowing everybody is looking at you even though they're not looking right at you.

"For those people who think pitching the ninth is like pitching any other inning, they're missing it."

La Russa decided he'd go with a "mix and match" closer situation. However, less than a week later he seemed to be trying to work Isringhausen back into the closer role when he employed the right-hander in the eighth inning of a game the Cardinals led, 5-4, against the Pirates in St. Louis.

Several long minutes later, La Russa had to go get Isringhausen after he first threw away a bunt that produced the tying run and then yielded Jason Bay's game-deciding, three-run, pinch-hit home run.

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Minor-league report

Monday's games

INDIANAPOLIS (22-23) was off.

ALTOONA (15-25) lost at Akron, 5-3. LHP Corey Hamman (0-5, 4.37) pitched three scoreless innings and allowed three hits. RHP Evan Meek (18.00), the Pirates' Rule 5 draft pick making his Class AA debut, was charged with the loss after allowing two runs on a hit, two walks and a balk in one inning of relief. RF Brad Corley (.283) hit his second home run, a two-run shot, and went 1 for 4. CF James Boone (.261) went 1 for 4 with a walk.

LYNCHBURG (17-26) was off.

HICKORY (23-22) won at Rome, 7-5. RHP Dustin Molleken (4-2, 4.88) allowed five runs, three earned, and eight hits in four innings. RHP Matt McSwain (0.55) pitched two scoreless innings of relief and struck out two. CF Marcus Davis (.250) hit his seventh home run, a three-run shot, and went 2 for 3 with a walk and four RBIs. LF Erik Huber (.263) went 3 for 5 with two doubles.

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The next day, the Cardinals put Isringhausen on the disabled list.

Capps watched that final Isringhausen moment from the Pirates' bullpen.

Could he empathize with Isringhausen? And with Gagne, too, for that matter?

"Athletically, no," Capps said. "You don't feel bad for them. You don't feel sorry for them. That sounds pretty bad. It sounds pretty cold.

"Personally, I know Izzy a little bit just from chatting with him. I think he's a great guy. Personally, I absolutely hate it because I like him a lot. Athletically, if he was on my team, I would feel bad for him. But [Isringhausen] being on a team we play against so many times a year, I don't."

Capps paused, thinking about how that eighth inning in St. Louis unfolded.

"You start to feel bad for the person, not for the athlete," he said. "You almost get that feeling of, 'OK, we got two runs [had Bay's drive been just a sacrifice fly]. That's all we need.'

"But then in the back of your mind, you say, 'Well, come on, they've got [Albert] Pujols. They've got [Troy] Glaus. These guys are swinging the bat well. Heck, we need 10 runs because they can go out and score seven in an inning.'

"It's a weird thing because you go out and compete, and you don't care who it is when the game's going on. You want to score 30 runs against their pitcher, and you want to strike out all their hitters five times in a game.

"But you get to know people and you kind of develop a working friendship, and maybe after the game you think about the person. You do feel bad, and you hate [that it happened to] them.

"But on the other hand, it's like a boss having to fire somebody. It's probably not a good feeling -- especially if you're good buddies -- but business is business. My business is to go out here and beat the team we're playing no matter who's on it."

Capps, at 24 by far the youngest of the six pitchers in the NL Central who began this season as their team's closers, has avoided the downs of the job for the most part since assuming the ninth-inning role June 1 last season.

He went 18 for 20 in converting saves through the rest of last season, and he's 10 for 10 this season.

He did, however, have a huge downer during his minor league career.

A bust as a starter after having been the Pirates' seventh-round draft pick out of high school in 2002, Capps almost decided to quit in the 2004 season while with low Class A Hickory.

He considered going to college and playing football. He was a standout quarterback in high school, and Georgia Tech had interest in him.

"At the time, I was 21 years old, three years out of high school," Capps said. "I didn't feel I was too far removed from being able to go back and playing college football, so it was definitely something that crossed my mind quite a bit."

However, his father persuaded him to give his baseball career one more year.

That winter, the Pirates decided to try Capps as a reliever.

"I had a hard time maintaining [my stuff] as a starter," Capps said. "When I was a starter, there were a couple things you were going to get. I either had a real bad day and didn't make it out of the first or second inning, or I had a day where I could get through four, maybe five innings, and then I was done.

"There was no such thing for me with going out and pacing myself. That never crossed my mind. I never in the first or second inning thought about what I was going to have in the sixth inning or in the seventh inning.

"The first pitch of the game was thrown as hard as I could throw it. And the second pitch of the game was thrown as hard as I could throw it. That lasted until physically I just ran out of gas.

"That definitely is a mentality that is more for a reliever. You come in and throw 15, 20 pitches, you can throw every pitch as hard as you can. I was a reliever with a starter's job.

"I think [the Pirates] saw that for one, two, three innings I could go out and compete and be fine, [and] after that it was kind of a crapshoot as to what you were going to get.

"I think they took the track record and said, 'Well, all right, let's shorten it up.' I started out in the middle of the bullpen, throwing two or three innings every now and then, and then it just kept going shorter and shorter all the way down to three outs."

Which, as we've learned in the NL Central the past week or so, can prove to be the toughest three outs in baseball.