Bubba Chandler admitted that maybe he was trying to do a little bit too much when he walked 10 batters over six innings in a three-start span to begin his spring.
Tonight against the Braves here at LECOM Park, Chandler looked more free, attacking the strike zone consistently, striking out eight batters and walking just one in five innings of one-run ball.
“I think now, it’s just let the stuff play,” Chandler said afterwards. “Be bold, be loud with it. That’s what we did.”
Chandler relied on fastball-heavy pitch mix. Actually, that might be an understatement. The first 18 pitches he threw were fastballs and he ended up turning to it a total of 49 times, generating 10 whiffs and finishing off five of his strikeouts with it.
“We talked in the past and anybody can pull up the numbers in the league,” Henry Davis said. “Ninety-eight with eighteen carrying above, it doesn’t really get hit. Just kinda said, ‘get the heater across the white, and we’ll be good.’”