Chandler’s trip back to Georgia ends with a Braves rally off free passes

The storyline had a built-in edge for Pirates rookie right-hander Bubba Chandler, who grew up in Bogart, Georgia, roughly an hour’s drive from Truist Park. On Sunday in Atlanta, Chandler returned home to face a Braves lineup that the Pirates are still learning how to slow down, even when the starting picture looks encouraging. Pittsburgh entered the day with a 2-0 lead, and Chandler helped protect it through the early innings after coming in as a bulk relief option following an opener from Mason Montgomery.

According to the Pirates’ game report, Chandler retired 15 of the first 17 batters he faced and allowed just one hit in that span, giving Pittsburgh a runway into the bottom of the seventh. For a pitcher in just his first relief window of the season stretch, that early control mattered. He pounded the strike zone, generated 13 first-pitch strikes against 20 batters, and finished with 56 strikes over 88 pitches, numbers that pointed to an efficient outing rather than a survival act.

Then the major-league margin for error narrowed quickly, especially against an MLB-best Braves team. Minutes into the seventh, Tyler Callihan’s throwing error opened the door, and Chandler’s next decisions handed Atlanta even more traffic: walks issued to Mike Yastrzemski and Jorge Mateo loaded the bases with one out. From there, Don Kelly turned to his bullpen again, bringing in Evan Sisk, but the damage was already set in motion by what the Braves do with free bases.

Michael Harris II, a pinch-hitter in the sequence, delivered the decisive swing, driving a bases-clearing double that flipped the lead from Pittsburgh to Atlanta. The Braves held on from there to complete what the report describes as the Pirates’ third sweep of the season. For Chandler, the result was a loss and a reminder that command lapses are magnified when the opponent’s lineup quality is as high as the Braves’. He finished with three runs allowed (two earned) on one hit, with two walks and seven strikeouts over 5 1/3 innings, falling to 2-7.

Chandler addressed the feel of coming out of the bullpen, noting that the adrenaline is different, but also speaking to a fundamental requirement: his best pitches have to play, even when the outing trends toward discomfort. The report also framed Chandler’s season-long challenge in terms of free passes, listing a 14.7% walk rate as among the highest in the league. Pirates manager Don Kelly sounded most encouraged by the process work Chandler did earlier in the game, saying the fastball command improved with more pitches and that Chandler was efficient with the strike zone until the final inning.

What comes next is straightforward for both teams. For the Pirates, it is another test of how quickly young pitchers learn to protect leads, especially when the game plan calls for bulk innings rather than a standard starter’s rhythm. For the Braves, it is the payoff of a mature approach, turning early protection and opportunistic baserunning into a late inning swing that breaks games open. Pittsburgh, meanwhile, now turns its attention to the Dodgers, as the report notes, with its attention likely returning to the one thing Sunday exposed: against elite teams, good outings can still lose if walks and small errors show up at the wrong time.