It seems as if it's only a matter of time before Bubba Chandler, the Pirates' top overall prospect, puts on a big-league uniform to make his long-awaited major-league debut. 

There's a long list of people eager to see him get that opportunity, including Paul Skenes. While he admits he hasn't watched any of Chandler's starts this season, he knows he's ready to take on the next challenge in joining the Pirates' starting rotation.

"How many hits has he given up? Three? I’m not a scout, so I don’t know," Skenes said with a slight smirk on his face this afternoon. “He’s my buddy. Looking forward to being with him every day, whenever that is. He’s going to bring a lot to the staff, I’m fired up to see that. I’m excited.”

There's no indication as to when Chandler will get the call, as Derek Shelton said this afternoon that discussions regarding that decision have not yet taken place. It appears inevitable, however, that Chandler will be helping the big-league club in 2025.

"At some point he'll be here," Shelton said. "He's been doing a good job. We just have to continue to build off of that."

Chandler thrived at the Class AAA level with Indianapolis last year and has continued right where he left off through his first five starts of this season, compiling a 1.33 ERA and 0.64 WHIP while limiting opposing hitters to a minuscule .106 batting average. He has allowed three runs on seven hits and has posted 27 strikeouts and six walks over 20 1/3 innings. 

Chandler continues to work on refining the shapes of his breaking balls while increasing his volume in Indy. He's been limited to 70 or fewer pitches in each of his starts this season and has yet to pitch more than five innings in an outing. 

"We're managing that volume a bit early in the season by keeping him on certain pitch counts while he's in Triple-A. At some point that will start to build, probably once we get into May, then start to build closer to a normal starter's pitch count," Ben Cherington said on April 18. "At that point, we'll see where we are. We'll see where he is.”

• For a decent portion of this first month of the regular season, the Pirates’ bullpen has resembled one of the top units in all of baseball. 

In tonight’s 9-0 loss to the Cubs at PNC Park, nothing went right for Pirates relievers. Joey Wentz allowed two runs in 1/3 of an inning, while Hunter Stratton, Colin Holderman and David Bednar each surrendered a run in a combined 2 2/3 innings. Kyle Nicolas, who has actually had his share of struggles in the big leagues this season, threw 1 1/3 innings of scoreless ball. 

Shelton isn’t exactly concerned about a bullpen that is operating without two injured relievers in Justin Lawrence and Tim Mayza, and Dennis Santana, who was placed on the bereavement list earlier in the day. More consistency is a must, though.

“We've got to find guys that can pitch in leverage innings. When you're a reliever and you have those innings, you have to cover. Realizing we're not gonna be perfect all the time, but you have to cover innings,” Shelton said. “We kind of got to figure it out because we're dinged up a little right now with Lawrence being out and Santana's not here. We have some guys that need to step into roles.”

• Joey Bart and Isiah Kiner-Falefa helped account for four of the Pirates’ seven hits tonight. Bart also walked twice and reached base four times. 

• After tossing five scoreless innings tonight, Shota Imanaga has now gone 19 consecutive innings against the Pirates without allowing a run. He had two separate outings last year in which he held the Pirates scoreless over seven strong innings.

“He's been effective against us. Fastball-split. We got ourselves in a couple situations to be able to score runs and he made pitches,” Shelton said. “He made pitches on one, they made a nice play on another one and we just couldn't break through.”

• The Pirates were shut out for the fifth time this season. No team in Major League Baseball has been blanked more.