PITTSBURGH (AP) \u2014 The Pittsburgh Pirates may have found their next star on the mound. Bubba Chandler, regarded as one of baseball\u2019s top pitching prospects, delivered a historic performance in his Major League Baseball debut Friday night, throwing four scoreless innings and earning a save in a 9-0 victory over the Colorado Rockies. According to the Associated Press, Chandler became the first pitcher since saves were officially recorded in 1969 to throw at least four shutout innings and record a save in his debut.
The 22-year-old right-hander allowed just two hits and struck out three, needing only 40 pitches to retire 12 batters. After giving up a leadoff double to Orlando Arcia, Chandler settled in quickly, striking out Ryan Ritter and Mickey Moniak with pitches clocked at 99.9 mph and 100.4 mph \u2014 the fastest strikeout pitches thrown by any Pirate this season. \u201cWelcome to the show, huh,\u201d Chandler joked afterward. \u201cDidn\u2019t want to give up a homer on the first at-bat, but after that my emotions slowed down and it was great.\u201d
Chandler\u2019s promotion came after an impressive stint at Triple-A Indianapolis, where his performances had already fueled speculation about a call-up. He admitted frustration at not reaching the majors sooner, but said the experience made Friday night even sweeter. \u201cThere\u2019s not a lot of 22-year-old kids that get to do this,\u201d he said. \u201cI was mad, yeah, whatever. But at the same time, I had to take care of what I needed to take care of. Now I\u2019m here. Don\u2019t care.\u201d
The Pirates now boast a formidable young pitching staff headlined by Chandler and reigning NL Rookie of the Year Paul Skenes. Manager Derek Shelton praised Chandler\u2019s poise and efficiency, saying his debut was \u201cas good as you could ask for\u201d from a prospect in his first appearance. The victory gave Pittsburgh momentum in the stretch run as they look to climb the National League standings.
Elsewhere in the majors, Yu Darvish led the San Diego Padres to a 2-1 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers, allowing just one hit over six innings as the Padres pulled level with their rivals atop the NL West. In the American League, Brayan Bello threw seven shutout innings to guide the Boston Red Sox past the New York Yankees 1-0, clinching the season series between the historic rivals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PITTSBURGH (AP) \u2014 The Pittsburgh Pirates may have found their next star on the mound. Bubba Chandler, regarded as one of baseball\u2019s top pitching prospects, delivered a historic performance in his Major League Baseball debut Friday night, throwing four scoreless innings and earning a save in a 9-0 victory over the Colorado Rockies. According to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/r1535459_1296x729_16-9.jpg?fit=1296%2C729&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17056"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17057,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17056\/revisions\/17057"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}