CHICAGO — Caleb Thielbar was approached after a 1-2-3 fifth inning and asked how he felt.

“[I] said, basically, whatever you need,” the Chicago Cubs left-hander said after their 6-2 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks at Wrigley Field on Saturday.

[Cubs Takeaways: What we learned in 6-2 win vs. Diamondbacks]

So, manager Craig Counsell trotted the southpaw – who the team signed to a one-year deal in the offseason – back out there for the sixth and he pitched a perfect inning again. It’s not the outing that will make any end-of-season highlight reel or be looked back on as a turning point in the 2025 campaign. But it was one of those gutsy appearances that are just as crucial for teams to help them weave through the grueling, 162-game marathon that is a major-league season.

“Those guys were great,” Counsell said. “Caleb Thielbar – all of them, but Thielbar – I thought going six up, six down really kind of put the game in a good place for us and put the rest of the bullpen in a good position.”

Friday’s historic game will be the one remembered by Cubs fans, but it was the type of performance that had ripple effects. Counsell used seven relievers in the wild 13-11 win. Counsell tried to mitigate that when they were up six runs in the eighth inning on Friday, turning to left-hander Jordan Wicks to try and pick up the final six outs. That didn’t go to plan, so high-leverage arms Porter Hodge and Ryan Pressly were used.

Then, the pesky Diamondbacks lineup worked long counts against starter Ben Brown and drew walks, forcing him to hurl 100 pitches in just four innings. It wasn’t ideal and Counsell had to turn to a gassed bullpen.

“I knew we definitely had some guys that were going to be hanging a little bit today after yesterday,” Thielbar said. “So just being able to go out there and give them two was huge, for sure.”

Thielbar’s outing helped save the relief corps. If Thielbar allowed baserunners, Counsell potentially has to start warming up some of the other leverage arms and use them on back-to-back days, almost certainly negating any chance of using them in Sunday’s finale.

The Cubs’ reliever corps was taxed, too. Six relievers had pitched three times over the last six days including righty Ethan Roberts, who had made four appearances in six days.

Thielbar made sure some of those guys didn’t have to fire their bodies up and keep them fresh over the full season, facing six batters and recording six outs.

That was on the heels of a back-to-back outing for the lefty. He faced two batters in Friday’s win, allowing a walk and inducing a groundout. It’s not the most taxing day, but he still got warm in the bullpen and threw high-intensity pitches, then recovered and pitched 24 hours later.

That meant Counsell needed to just use Brad Keller for an inning and Daniel Palencia for the final six outs – which were impressive, too.

Thielbar, as a nine-year veteran, hopes he can pass that to some of the young relievers he’s sharing the left field bullpen with.

“Most teams, they want to have some young, cheap guys in the bullpen,” Thielbar said. “And so it’s just on us as veteran guys [to] try to go down there to try to keep these guys in line a little bit and do the best we can to help raise them into good pitchers, really. Teach them how to go from day to day and have a good routine and be ready every day.

“I mean, that’s such a big deal that people don’t understand is what we do off the field, to make sure that we can go out there every day and pitch.”