The Pittsburgh Pirates had a rough start to June, but they’ve gained some traction in the first leg of their current road trip.
Pittsburgh lost nine of 13 games to begin the month before winning two straight from the Athletics to take that series. The Pirates’ six-game road trip concludes in Denver this weekend when they begin a three-game series at Colorado starting Friday night.
Pittsburgh will send right-hander Bubba Chandler (2-7, 4.76 ERA) to the mound against Rockies lefty Kyle Freeland (1-7, 7.98) in the opener.
Chandler made his major league debut against Colorado on Aug. 22, 2025, pitching four scoreless innings in a 9-0 Pirates win to earn his only save. The hard-throwing righty has started 13 of his 14 games this season and has yet to last past the sixth inning.
Pitching in Denver will be a challenge, and a win there might require Pittsburgh’s offense to build on the series against the A’s. The Pirates had double-digit hits in their last two games and scored 18 runs after plating just 16 over the previous five games.
“That’s a key for us, quality at-bats and production up and down the lineup,” said Ryan O’Hearn, who had a career-high six RBIs in Wednesday’s 12-4 win. “Any stretch that we’ve had that’s been really good this season, the common denominator has been the offense has been kind of relentless up and down the lineup.”
More good signs were Marcell Ozuna hitting his first home run since May 15 and all nine starters having at least one hit.
Freeland is in search of his first win since April 7 when he beat Houston and lowered his ERA to 2.30 at that point of the season. He has regressed since, going 0-4 and posting a 12.46 ERA over five starts in May and is 0-1 with a 7.71 ERA in his first three outings of June.
He has allowed five or more earned runs in six of his last eight starts heading into his 11th career game against Pittsburgh. In his first 10 outings against the Pirates, he is 3-5 with a 5.15 ERA.
Like Chandler, Freeland is pitching for an offense that has been surging. The Rockies have scored four or more runs in their last six games, which includes setting a franchise record during a 23-9 win over the A’s in Las Vegas on Sunday.
Colorado dropped two of three at the Chicago Cubs to wrap up its six-game road trip but scored 15 runs during the series. Catcher Hunter Goodman hit his team-leading 21st homer in Wednesday night’s 8-6 loss but the bigger story was rookie Sterlin Thompson going deep twice for his the first two home runs of his career.
According to MLB.com, Thompson is the sixth Rockies player to hit his first two big-league homers in the same game and first since Brian Serven did it May 21, 2022, against the New York Mets.
“It’s a great moment for sure — a cool spot to get the first one and then go to the next (at-bat) and hit the second one,” Thompson said.
–Field Level Media
