Before Sunday’s series finale against the Rockies, Pirates general manager Ben Cherington met with reporters and discussed Bubba Chandler’s major league debut, Konnor Griffin’s promotion to Altoona and more.

Chandler, a starting pitcher by trade, has begun his major league career out of the bullpen as a bulk reliever. While the plan is still for him to be a starter, Cherington said there were a number of factors that led to Chandler starting his career in relief.

One was Chandler’s recent struggles. It wasn’t the plan for him to start in relief, but the Pirates pivoted to that in the last week or so.

“It is no secret that he got off to a great start in Triple-A and then went through some challenges in Triple-A the last couple of months,” Cherington said. “At some point we got concerned

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