PIRATES

Fresh off his most productive outing of the season against the Rays last week, Bubba Chandler was much less effective over four innings here tonight at Globe Life Field. 

Chandler saw his pitch count swell to 40 by the end of the second inning and he ended up throwing four or more pitches to 12 of the 22 batters he faced en route to a 78-pitch finish. He surrendered a season-high six runs on seven hits with three walks and four strikeouts, while also allowing two homers -- a two-run inside-the-park homer to Evan Carter in the third and a three-run shot to Corey Seager in the fourth -- for the second time in his last three starts. 

Chandler leaned on his fastball per usual and turned to his changeup as his go-to secondary offering, allowing four of his hits with that particular pitch. One of those hits was the Seager homer, as Chandler left one on the inner half of the plate and was punished for it. 

"Just trying to strike it, and probably in situations and counts I didn't need to," Chandler said. "Definitely Seager’s homer, definitely shouldn't have threw that pitch right where I threw it, but he made a good swing on it. Threw a lot of changeups to him. … It's on me. If I execute the pitch, 98 percent of the time it’s not gonna be a home run. Gotta do that better and we’ll be fine." 

Chandler, who now takes a 4.88 ERA and 1.50 WHIP into his next start against the Cardinals, doesn't intend to dwell on this lackluster performance. He knows he didn't execute the way he wanted to, he knows mistakes were made, but he's fully prepared to flush it and move on. 

"Hop on the bus, get on the plane, and don’t think about it again," Chandler said. "Look back at video. There was something off, whether it was mentality, mechanics. I’m capable of throwing well. Didn't do it tonight. Wake up in the morning, don’t care — care, but not (linger on it). On to St. Louis, that's the next one I got, so just care about that. Go out there and dominate them."