Pirates' Bubba Chandler Makes MLB History in Debut

This served as just the second save for Chandler in his professional career, last doing so with Double-A Altoona on May 5, 2024 vs. the Harrisburg Senators, the Double-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals, as Chandler threw three scoreless innings, with three strikeouts in the 6-2 victory.

Chandler had started all 24 games this season with Triple-A Indianapolis and 83 of his 89 minor league games before his Pirates call-up, but earned a bulk-reliever role, similar to Ashcraft when he first came up on May 26.

While he'd obviously rather start, making his MLB debut in Pittsburgh and making MLB history was worth it for Chandler.

"No. Yeah, it didn't even cross my mind," Chandler said on the four-inning save. "I'd relieved a couple times but I think I've started 80-some games in the minor leagues. So you know you think coming up, you're going to be a starter and you're going to start. But when they told me I was coming up, it was 'cool, I don't care if I'm batboy, whatever.' I just want to be here and I want to help the team win and hopefully I did that."

Chandler became the second Pirates rookie pitcher this season that had a four-inning save, as fellow right-hander Thomas Harrington did so vs. the St. Louis Cardinals on Aug, 7 at PNC Park.

The last Pirates pitcher that did so was Jason Christiansen in a 5-1 win over the Montreal Expos on July 17, 1998.

Pirates manager Don Kelly didn't initially anticipate keeping Chandler in for four innings, but after throwing just seven pitches in the seventh inning and nine pitches in the eighth inning, he thought it would do Chandler good to finish off the game.

"It was like 10 pitches every inning," Kelly said. "I don't know exactly what it was, but I know looked up it was two in 21 and then three in 30; he was so efficient and so good. Just let him roll." 

Chandler didn't even think he'd get the chance to go out again after the eighth inning, but when Pirates pitching coach Oscar Marín told him to get back out there, he knew exactly what he had to do in the ninth inning.

“That was cool," Chandler said. "When I came out of the eighth, I was kind of thinking, ‘Gosh, I really hope they let me go one more. That would be great.’ I didn’t know it was a save opportunity, but I was like, ‘I really want to finish this thing out. That would be the cherry on top.’ When I walked in, Oscar was like, ‘Hey, one more. Let’s go.’ I was like, yeah, let’s go.”