Pirates prospect Bubba Chandler strikes out 10 at Triple-A

Three years after playing high school football, Bubba Chandler remains a quarterback at heart.

When MLB’s No. 38 overall prospect watches live gridiron games, he can’t help but break down defenses by watching safeties and identifying coverages. The two-sport high school star thinks through progressions while playing EA Sports College Football 25, which has enabled him to rank 9,000th in the world in Road to the College Football Playoff.

Chandler uses a very similar mindset on the mound, making subtle adjustments to beat his opponents.

That much was on display Tuesday when the right-hander made his best Triple-A start yet, flirting with perfection while striking out 10 over six innings in Indianapolis’ 13-3 win at Victory Field.

Chandler is known for his high-90s fastball, but he leaned away from the pitch in his first few outings at the highest level of the Minors. He knew hitters would be sitting on his heater, so he kept them off balance by throwing the pitch just 49.2 percent of the time in his first five starts for Indy.

After getting opposing batters off his fastball, Chandler returned to his bread and butter on Tuesday — firing his four-seamer 58 times in 87 pitches. The 22-year-old touched 99.1 mph with the pitch and averaged a personal-best 97.5 mph.

Chandler also made slight adjustments to his slider, which had been less effective of late. The 2021 third-rounder pumped up its average velocity to a season-high 88.4 mph and established his command with the pitch early in the start, which enabled him to get batters to whiff at it out of the zone late.

“Last year, I threw my slider harder and didn’t get the results I wanted with it. I didn’t really have a lot of depth to it,” Chandler said. “So this year I took a step back velocity-wise and tried to get it to drop a little more. … The harder you throw, there’s less time for the ball to move. So that was kind of the thought today. Get the slider in the zone early, and that’s what happened. I’m pleased with how it looked.”

With his updated game plan, the Georgia native was nearly untouchable. He garnered his Triple-A-high 18 whiffs on 44 swings and didn’t allow a baserunner until the 18th batter. He loaded the bases with two outs in the sixth on a single and two walks, then struck out childhood friend Brady House (WSH No. 2) on a high 3-2 fastball — and let out a primal scream.

Chandler’s scoreless start was the latest in a dominant stretch with Indianapolis. He put up strong numbers for Double-A Altoona before his promotion in early August, but all of his numbers are even better against the top competition in the Minors: ERA (down from 3.70 to 1.59), WHIP (down from 1.01 to 0.94) and strikeouts per nine innings (up from 10.5 to 12.2).

Working with catchers Henry Davis and Jason Delay, who both have Major League experience, has been a major key to Chandler’s transition. But the quarterback mentality he’s never shaken remains the backbone of the 21-year-old’s athletic profile.

“The more you run the ball, especially if you’re running it well, the more the play-action passing game opens up,” Chandler said. “On the mound, the more you locate pitches and tunnel pitches, the more area of the zone you got opens up. It’s kind of the same thing. As a pitcher, you’ve got to command what’s going on, and as a quarterback, you have to command the entire offense. How the game goes is pretty much how you play. I definitely see a lot of similarities.”