Bubba Chandler topped triple digits 13 times with his four-seam fastball against San Diego, but the Pittsburgh Pirates rookie right-hander couldn’t hide his contempt for his inability to stay in the strike zone.
A day after three pitchers combined for 14 strikeouts without a walk against the Baltimore Orioles, Chandler had as many walks (four) as strikeouts in allowing three runs on five hits over 4 1/3 innings.
Chandler took his command issues on the chin as the Pirates followed a sweep of the Orioles with their second shutout loss of the season, a 5-0 defeat Monday night that snapped their five-game winning streak before 8,446 on a 52-degree night at PNC Park.
“Hits are fine — it’s stuff that’s going to happen — but not competing in the zone is just pathetic,” Chandler said. “It’s eating at me, and I’m going to fix it, clean it up.”
Chandler had 31 strikeouts against four walks in 31 1/3 innings over seven appearances (four starts) for the Pirates last season, so the command issues have served as a source of frustration. In his first two starts this season, Chandler has as many walks (10) as strikeouts.
Despite averaging 99.1 mph on 55 fastballs, Chandler threw only 48 of his 83 pitches for strikes against the Padres, drawing 11 called strikes and 12 whiffs. He shared that he was ticked off, saying his short outing set the team up for failure because it taxed the bullpen.
“I’ve not walked people before,” Chandler said. “Last year, I had great outings. I had one bad one. I didn’t walk anybody. I can do it. Just got to compete. … The game’s hard enough. Hitters tell you everything you need to know. At least 75% of the time, you throw a ball down the middle, it’s pretty good. Pretty good outcome. So just the thought is, throw strikes. I’m not going to change anything.”
There would be no hoisting of the cone for the Pirates, who went 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position and left nine men on base in their seventh consecutive loss to San Diego at PNC Park since sweeping the Padres in a three-game series July 2023. Padres starter German Marquez (1-1) — who took a no-hitter into the ninth against the Pirates for the Colorado Rockies in June 2021 — tossed five scoreless innings, striking out four with six hits and one walk.
“He kept us off-balance with a lot of different stuff, especially that knuckle-curve, finding a way to drop that in there and change speeds,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said. “Kept the ball low in the zone. We had some chances early and just couldn’t capitalize on it.”
The Pirates threatened to score before a base running snafu. Ryan O’Hearn drew a leadoff walk and advanced to second on a Nick Gonzales single to right that was deflected by first baseman Gavin Sheets. O’Hearn was caught in no-man’s land when third base coach Tony Beasley gave a late stop sign on a Spencer Horwitz single to right. Gonzales continued to third, forcing O’Hearn to try to score. Fernando Tatis Jr.’s throw beat him to home plate, and the Pirates left two runners on base on Konnor Griffin’s broken-bat groundout to first.
“It wasn’t our night,” Kelly said. “We had been playing really good. Tonight, on the bases, the one play where O’Hearn was on second and Nick came around, (Beasley) didn’t see the deflection. You’ve got Tatis in right field, who has an absolute cannon. Shorter in right field here at PNC, and he didn’t see the deflection. Nick did while he was running so he kept on going, which is what we want our baserunners to do when they see that. Got to keep our head up there, too. We want our guys to be aggressive when they see stuff like that. Tough play right there.”
The Padres capitalized against Chandler in the third. Manny Machado drew a one-out walk, advanced to second on a Xander Bogaerts single to left and to third when Gavin Sheets grounded into a forceout. Nick Castellanos doubled to left to drive in Machado for a 1-0 lead, and put a pair of runners in scoring position but Chandler struck out Fermin again.
Chandler walked leadoff batter Jake Cronenworth to start the fifth and Ramon Laureano followed by grounding into a forceout at second. Tatis drew another walk. Then Jackson Merrill hit a fly ball to left field that Bryan Reynolds had trouble tracking, stumbling at the warning track as it bounced over the fence for a ground-rule double and 2-0 lead.
“Off the bat, I wasn’t sure how well he hit it, and it just kept on going,” Kelly said. “Obviously, got it pretty good, but to me, the ball just kept on carrying there.”
Yohan Ramirez replaced Chandler and got Machado to hit a comebacker that drove in Tatis to give the Padres a three-run advantage.
Oneil Cruz singled down the right-field line, stole second base and reached third on a throwing error by Freddy Fermin to put the Pirates in scoring position with one out in the fifth, but Brandon Lowe popped up to third and Reynolds flied out to left to end the scoring threat.
Fermin hit a two-out double to left in the sixth and scored on Cronenworth’s double to right to push the Padres to a 4-0 lead. O’Hearn hit a leadoff double to the left-field corner in the bottom of the sixth and reached third on a fly out to right by Gonzales but was stranded.
The Padres padded their lead to 5-0 against Justin Lawrence in the eighth, when Fermin singled to center and scored from first on Laureano’s double to the right field corner when O’Hearn threw to second base instead of hitting the cutoff man.
Lowe and Reynolds drew back-to-back walks to start the eighth, but O’Hearn hit into a 4-6-3 double play and Marcell Ozuna grounded out to short to strand Lowe at third base and drop his batting average to .067 (2 for 30), drawing boos from the crowd. In the ninth, Gonzales drew a one-out walk, but Griffin struck out and pinch hitter Jake Mangum bunted into a groundout to end the game.
“You’ve got to get over it. You just won five games in a row, played really good baseball, swept the Orioles,” Kelly said. “We can’t get caught up in the sweeps and can’t get caught up in games like this. Just need to find a way to bounce back and come back tomorrow and play solid baseball.”