When Ben Heller loaded the bases against the first three Los Angeles Dodgers he faced, the right-handed reliever couldn’t help but have flashbacks to his previous outings for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The 33-year-old Heller allowed 11 earned runs on nine hits, one walk and four hit batsmen in a pair of disastrous relief performances three days apart in early June, including one against the Dodgers. "It took all of the inner strength that I have to get out of that,” Heller said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. "If I’m being honest, part of me thought, bases loaded with no outs, here we go again. As much as I try to bury what happened my last time here, it’s still in the back of your mind a little bit.” Heller entered with a 49.50 ERA this season when he replaced rookie Paul Skenes in the seventh inning of the 4-1 loss Saturday night at Dodger Stadium, only to give up back-to-back singles to Kevin Kiermaier and Nick Ahmed that prompted the Pirates to intentionally walk Shohei Ohtani. Entire stadium is on its feet for Ben Heller pic.twitter.com/to2kxms64G — Jim Rosati ????‍☠️ (@northsidenotch) August 11, 2024 Getting into immediate trouble was nothing new to Heller. In the 10th inning against the Minnesota Twins on June 9, he gave up a leadoff triple before giving three free passes followed by a two-run double before recording an out. Heller allowed seven runs (six earned) on five hits, one walk and three hit batsmen in the 11-5 loss. Heller was designated for assignment, cleared waivers and outrighted to Triple-A Indianapolis, where he had a 1.33 ERA in his 21 appearances before having his contract selected when setup man Colin Holderman went on the 15-day injured list with a sprained right wrist. This time, Heller turned to his bread-and-butter pitches to record three strikeouts against the heart of the Dodgers’ order and escape the jam unscathed before pitching a clean seventh to cut his ERA in half (24.75) in one appearance. "Even the hits they got were fastballs in the zone that they took the other way, good pieces of hitting. Nothing I regret there,” Heller said. "Once I kind of dialed it in, it was the changeup and the cutter, which have been my big swing-and-miss pitches this year in Triple-A. I’m just trusting and I’m not trying to do too much. I’m not overcooking them, but staying on the plate with them and trusting that I’m a really tough AB because I have multiple pitches and I throw hard and I’m in the zone. It’s just kind of a matter of believing that and mixing my pitches.” First, Heller got Teoscar Hernandez, whose three-hit night included a solo home run, looking at a called third strike on an 87-mph cutter low and away. Then he got Freddie Freeman, who homered and had a double Friday, to chase a 97-mph four-seamer above the strike zone. Finally, Heller fooled Gavin Lux, who had two hits and three RBIs, to go down swinging at an 86-mph changeup in the dirt. Pirates manager Derek Shelton was impressed with how Heller handled the high-stress situation in the seventh, so he sent him back out for the eighth. Heller sandwiched a pair of groundouts around a strikeout of Kike Hernandez, to save the bullpen. "That we were able to get through two games having to use only two bullpen arms — we’d like to use our leverage guys, on the flip side of it,” Shelton said, "but the fact that Ben was able to give us two (innings) was really important.” Heller, who spent parts of four seasons with the New York Yankees and made 19 appearances for the Atlanta Braves last year, called it "one of the most memorable outings of my career, at any level.” "Honestly, I’m extremely proud of how I handled that,” Heller said. "I feel like it’s just my entire big league career, I haven’t been able to fully step up and do what I’m fully capable of doing — because I know I’m capable of being a really good reliever in the big leagues — and I think (Saturday night) was just a good spot to reach deep down and believe in myself and sort of prove it to myself.” Kevin Gorman is a TribLive reporter covering the Pirates. A Baldwin native and Penn State graduate, he joined the Trib in 1999 and has covered high school sports, Pitt football and basketball and was a sports columnist for 10 years. He can be reached at kgorman@triblive.com. Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free. Get Ad-Free > Sign Up for NotificationsStay up-to-date on important news from TribLIVE