Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski Curve pitcher Bubba Chandler works against the Akron RubberDucks on Thursday night.

Roy Ruben Chandler is a simple man who makes a living by making the lives of his opponents hard with each pitch that leaves his right hand.

Chandler is better known as “Bubba,” a nickname given to him by his two older sisters when he was a youngster growing up in Athens, Ga.

Chandler is the youngest of three, but as he tells it, his sisters are far better athletes than the pitcher who currently plays for the Altoona Curve.

“To be honest, I’m probably the worst athlete in the family,” Chandler joked. “With your sisters, you wouldn’t think it’d be as competitive as it is, but they’re basketball, softball, soccer and track stars. They’re just great athletes. And so I kind of had two older brothers, just females.”

That competitiveness was on full display on the family basketball hoop regularly where Chandler and his dad would take on his mom and older sisters, oftentimes coming out on the losing end.

“Every night we’d go out there and it’d be 2-on-3 with me and my dad versus my mom and my two sisters, and they’d whoop our butts,” he said. “We grew up being competitive, and it developed that competitive nature.”

Given his relationship with his sisters and parents, it comes as no surprise Chandler views family as one of the pillars which makes him who he is. His faith and relationship with God also help provide a pillar of strength for the 21-year old.

“I have a good faith with the Lord. I have a great family, and I got drafted into an organization where a lot of people around me have the same views,” Chandler said. “Every day when I go out there and throw or go out there and pitch, I have confidence in who I’m playing with and who I’m playing for.”

Chandler has reached Double-A Altoona in large part due to his abilities on the mound, but it’s what he does off the field that people don’t see that has made him into a pitcher who is closer than many might think to reaching the Major Leagues.

“He does a really good job of being able to self-evaluate, self-assess,” Curve manager Robby Hammock said. “That’s something that’s not spoken much about him, but he is able to do that deep down when it’s all said and done, and I think that’s just a really, really powerful tool that he has and one of the reasons why he’s able to make adjustments quickly.”

Chandler’s ability to make those changes on the fly and adjust to improve his game helps make him one of the top prospects in the Pirates’ organization. Being able to do that did not come easily, and it took failure to help him see it.

“A lot of failure, just failing, failing a lot and wondering why you’re failing and finding ways to not fail, and that was kind of my first year, it was pretty easy,” Chandler said. “Then I got to (Single-A) Greensboro last year and pretty much statistically-wise, the whole first half was a failure. Mentally, I think it really helped me for that season, and hopefully it’ll help me for the next 20 years.”

Winning often hides flaws and shields them from the light while losing exposes the flows and allows all to see the problems and issues plaguing a pitcher such as Chandler.

For Chandler, there is a benefit to failure and always a chance to grow.

“No one likes losing. No one likes failing,” Chandler said. “It’s just every day finding greatness in failure was kind of my mindset. If I’m gonna pitch badly, find something that was good about the outing and just ride with that.”

There have been many good outings for Chandler in his time with the Curve, including back-to-back starts where he went six-plus innings with double-digit strikeouts.

And with the good outings, there have also been some bad outings Chandler has had to work through this season.

“I think, as of recently, I’ve been pitching pretty well. I think at the beginning of the year, I was pitching pretty well,” Chandler said. “Then that kind of like late April, May, I just kind of got a little comfortable. I think that’s all it was, and once you get comfortable, your flaws show and that’s what happened. Now I feel really good. Things are going well, and I’m a lot more confident now, confident with four pitches.”

Not being successful on the mound can be a lonely, yet humbling experience for a player such as Chandler, but his maturity is one of the many positive traits Hammock used to describe him.

“One of the main things is his maturity, his mound presence and routine,” Hammock said. “He’s always had stuff. Everybody knew that coming out of the (MLB) Draft. He’s starting to fine-tune it really well now.”

Just because things are getting fine-tuned doesn’t mean it will always be perfect, but for Chandler, how he handles his successes and his failures complements his ability on the rubber.

“If I have a bad outing, I’m going to come into the clubhouse, I’m going to recover, do whatever I need to do. It takes 45 minutes to an hour, then after that, go back in the dugout, and I’m like I didn’t even play,” Chandler said. “If it’s good, I’m going to come into the clubhouse, give myself a little pat on the back and get back to work, because in five more days, I’m going to do it again.”

When he does it again, for Chandler it will be the three “F’s” that have shaped him — faith, family and failure — that help him get the job done.