Clemson Professional Athletes

Bubba Chandler didn't win Friday night's start against the Dodgers, but he made an impact that will ripple through Los Angeles' outfield picture for the next month-plus.

The Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander hit Andy Pages with a 100.2-mph fastball in the third inning at Dodger Stadium on August 15, fracturing the outfielder's left hand. Pages — the Dodgers' lone productive outfielder at the time — is expected to miss four to five weeks, effectively ending his regular season. Chandler became the center of one of the week's biggest injury stories in baseball, and not for reasons any pitcher wants.

The start itself was a mixed bag. Chandler took the loss in a 4-2 Pirates defeat, going four innings, surrendering four earned runs and striking out six batters. His ERA climbed to 4.38, and he entered the game carrying a 6-8 record with a 4.23 ERA and 1.37 WHIP on the season. At 22 years old, he's still developing — but a triple-digit fastball that breaks a bone is a reminder that the raw stuff is very real, even when the results aren't pretty.

The Pages situation adds a layer of complexity. The Dodgers won the game despite the injury, but losing their most dependable outfield option for the final weeks of a pennant race is a genuine blow. For Chandler, it's an uncomfortable kind of notoriety — the sort that follows a pitcher whether he wants it to or not.

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Elsewhere in the Tiger Alumni Report

Beyond Chandler's headline-grabbing week, a pair of Clemson products posted quietly productive performances across the league.

Eli White (Clemson, 2017) had his best stretch of the week for the Boston Red Sox, going 1-for-the-day with an RBI and a run scored on both Monday against Arizona and Saturday against San Francisco. He's hitting .240 on the season, and while that's not an eye-popping number, he's shown flashes of contributing across both games this week.

Weston Wilson (Clemson, 2018) had his most active showing of the stretch on Saturday for the Seattle Mariners against the Cubs, logging two hits and scoring twice to push his average back to .208 after a rough mid-week dip. Wilson had battled down to .196 as recently as Thursday, so the Saturday bounce was a needed shot of momentum heading into the final weeks of the season.

Neither White nor Wilson is putting up All-Star numbers, but both are holding roster spots in competitive organizations and contributing in spots — which is the quiet story of Clemson's deep MLB footprint in 2026.

The bigger narrative, though, belongs to Chandler. A 100.2-mph fastball that lands in the wrong place has a way of commanding attention. Whether that translates into a stronger second half of the season — or just a footnote in a Dodgers injury report — will define how this chapter of his young career gets remembered.

Bubba Chandler Is Making Pittsburgh Pay Attention

It's a small sample, but Bubba Chandler is pitching like someone who has figured something out.

The former Clemson righty delivered back-to-back strong outings for the Pirates this week, capping the stretch with six scoreless innings and five strikeouts in a dominant 9-0 blanking of the New York Mets. The outing was textbook: Chandler kept the Mets off the board from first pitch to last, while Nick Gonzales drove in three to make the margin comfortable behind him.

His previous start against the Boston Red Sox told a similar story. Chandler went five innings, struck out six — and while he allowed two earned runs, Pittsburgh still cruised to an 8-4 win, with Brandon Lowe and Rafael Flores adding home run support. Over the two outings, Chandler is logging innings, missing bats, and giving Pittsburgh's rotation exactly what a contending team needs heading into a stretch run: stability. His ERA sits at 4.23, but the trend line is pointing in the right direction.

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Weston Wilson's Solo Shot Silences the Bronx

Across the diamond, Clemson's other headliner had a moment of a different kind.

Weston Wilson, manning third base for the Seattle Mariners, launched a solo homer in the top of the second inning on August 13 — and that was all Seattle would need. Logan Gilbert locked it down over six scoreless frames, and the Mariners walked away with a 1-0 win over the New York Yankees. Wilson's shot was the entire margin of victory: one swing, one run, one win.

It was the signature moment of a quietly productive week for Wilson, who also drew walks in both the August 9 and August 11 contests against Tampa Bay and New York respectively. He's hitting .204 on the year, but in this game, the number on the scoreboard was the only one that mattered.

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Around the Diamond

Eli White, the former Tiger now patrolling center field for the Boston Red Sox, had a week with some pop. He went 3-for-something with an RBI and a run scored in the Red Sox's August 9 loss to the Athletics, then added another hit and a run in the Pirates series on August 14 — a game in which he faced, notably, fellow Clemson alum Bubba Chandler on the mound. Clemson's MLB footprint is large enough now that Tiger-on-Tiger matchups are happening in the middle of a pennant race.

Spencer Strider remains in the mix for Atlanta, though in a supporting role — FanSided reports the Braves are eyeing a stretch-run return for the righty, potentially out of the bullpen rather than the rotation as he works back from injury.

The week, though, belonged to Chandler and Wilson. One is carving up lineups on the mound. The other is delivering clutch moments in close games. Clemson's MLB alumni class has never been short on talent — right now, two of its members are making real noise.

Two Clemson alumni made headlines in MLB this week — one changing addresses, the other quietly cementing his place in a big-league rotation.

Eli White Heads to Boston

The most notable Tiger transaction of the week came when Atlanta shipped outfielder Eli White to the Red Sox in what reports described as a minor swap. White had appeared with the Braves as recently as August 2, but by midweek he was suiting up in Boston, appearing in games against the White Sox and Athletics across a stretch of four consecutive days.

The numbers have been modest — White's batting average hovered between .221 and .233 across the week's sample — but his on-base contributions were visible, including a walk and a run scored Saturday against Oakland. At 30, White is a depth piece rather than a focal point, but his versatility in the outfield gives the Red Sox a useful option off the bench or in a short-term starting role. The trade itself signals Atlanta reshuffling its roster margin; for White, it's a fresh opportunity in a new uniform.

Bubba Chandler Earns His Starts

While White was adjusting to a new organization, Bubba Chandler was busy doing what starting pitchers do: logging innings and missing bats. The right-hander turned in two quality outings for Pittsburgh this week, and the results back up his continued hold on a rotation spot.

On Monday, August 3, Chandler went 5.2 innings against the Brewers, striking out five and allowing two earned runs — a performance that dropped his ERA to 4.49. He followed that up Saturday against the Mets with arguably his better outing of the stretch: six full innings, five more strikeouts, and an ERA that ticked down to 4.26. The Pirates won 4-3 over Milwaukee early in the week and played Chandler in a competitive situation with New York on Saturday, a sign the organization trusts the former Tiger to eat innings in meaningful games.

For a Pittsburgh club sitting well below .500 at 56-57, finding reliable rotation pieces matters regardless of playoff positioning, and Chandler is giving them that. His five-strikeout outings in both starts suggest his stuff is playing at the big-league level — the command and consistency question, as it is for most young starters, remains the ongoing story.

Around the Tiger Nation

No other Clemson alumni generated significant statistical activity this week worth highlighting, though Weston Wilson notched a hit for the Mariners on Thursday against Detroit, keeping his average at .209. The former Tiger infielder continues to carve out playing time in Seattle.

The bigger-picture story for Clemson's MLB diaspora is a familiar one: the Tigers produce arms and athletes who find their way onto rosters across the league, and in a single week in August 2026, they showed up in Boston, Pittsburgh, and Seattle. Chandler's development as a rotation piece is the one to watch as the second half of the season unfolds.