Being a youngster in Major League Baseball is among the toughest things in professional sports, as the jump from Triple-A to the big leagues, according to most players, is as big as ever.
For someone like Bubba Chandler, although pitchers typically have more success in the big leagues than hitters right away, it isn’t easy to come up at just 22 years old and do what he did on the mound for the Pirates a season ago. Chandler posted a 4.02 ERA, throwing in 31.1 innings and striking out 31 hitters.
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All signs suggest he’ll be one of the better starters in this Pirates rotation moving forward if he continues to do what he’s done throughout his career.
When speaking about the challenges, however, he admitted that in Triple-A, you can get away with some missed spots on pitches. In the big leagues, guys typically find a way to hit the ball hard, even if he dots up.
“Up here,” he noted, “I’ve made a couple of mistake pitches that were hit pretty hard, whereas in Triple-A they might have gotten fouled off.”
“At the same time, these are big league hitters. If you execute a fastball at the very top right corner, or the top left corner of the strike zone at 100 miles an hour, they can still hit a line drive back side. That’s the beauty of how hard this game is,” said Chandler, per Ethan Merrill.
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The difference between big league hitters and Triple-A hitters is night and day, and that gap seems to be widening over the past few years.
There’s also a mental side of the game that has to be remembered, but Chandler seems to be doing just fine with that. As long as he continues to keep his head on straight, there’s no reason he can’t be one of the better starters in the game.
“There is that mental warfare that goes on when you’re on the mound,” he described. “You know that you’re not going to be perfect, but how good can you be on this one pitch, right here, right now?”