NEW YORK (AP) — Taj Bradley walked onto the Yankee Stadium mound for the first time and spotted his mother sitting behind home plate in the crowd of 43,173.
“She’s loud,” he said with a smile. “I’ve been hearing her for 23 years. That’s a voice I key in on, even if I’m not paying attention.”
Bradley gave Ana Mosley much to cheer about. The 23-year-old right-hander pitched seven shutout innings of one-hit ball in the Tampa Bay Rays’ 9-1 rout of the New York Yankees on Saturday. His 0.92 ERA over eight starts going back to June 8 is the best in the major leagues during that span, even lower than the 1.14 mark that belongs to Pittsburgh Pirates sensation Paul Skenes.
“That’s cool,” Bradley said.
Six years ago, Bradley was an outfielder for Redan High in Stone Mountain, Georgia, when coach Alexander Wyche put him on the mound against Westlake. Bradley said the position change was “kind of just forced” on him.
Scouts were there to see Westlake outfielder Lawrence Butler, who would be drafted in the sixth round by Oakland and made his big league debut last August. Bradley started to get attention.
Now he can laugh about what would have happened had he not been spotted that day.
“I’d be working at Walmart or something,” he said.
Committed to South Carolina after switching from his initial choice of Hillsborough Community College in Florida, Bradley was taken by Tampa Bay in the fifth round of the 2018 amateur draft with the 150th pick and signed for $747,500, more than double the $343,600 slot value.
He worked his way up the minors with stops in Princeton, West Virginia; Bowling Green, Kentucky; Charleston, South Carolina; Montgomery, Alabama; and Durham, North Carolina. Bradley made his big league debut on April 12 last year, was sent right back down and recalled three more times.
Bradley went 5-8 with a 5.59 ERA in 21 starts and a pair of relief appearances. His 2024 season was delayed when he strained his right pectoral muscle while warming up for his second spring training start on March 12, and he didn’t make his first big league appearance until May 10.
He started 1-4 with a 5.81 ERA, hitting a low at Baltimore on June 1 when he allowed nine runs, nine hits and three walks in 3 1/3 innings. He worked with pitching coach Kyle Snyder and Rays major league pitching strategist Bobby Kinne to tweak his mechanics.
“Really didn’t get too heavy on what happened that day,” Bradley recalled. “`Hey, your stuff was good. They just hit some good pitches,’” they told him.
Pitching in the Bronx, Bradley knew the atmosphere would be different.
“Even in the bullpen, you’re getting heckled,” he said.
Bradley (5-4) allowed his only hit against the Yankees when Ben Rice doubled leading off the first. Bradley retired Juan Soto on a groundout, then struck out Aaron Judge and Austin Wells.
“He just kind of got into a rhythm and we were kind of playing into his gameplan,” Rice said, “just kind of swinging at some edge pitches.”
Bradley is 4-0 over his last seven starts.
“I think Taj would be the first to say he’s not there yet, but, I mean, how can you argue with the results that he’s been getting?” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “It seems like every challenge that’s been thrown at him, he’s handling really, really well. Whether there’s adversity in the first inning or it comes later in the ballgame when he’s got 75, 85 pitches, he seems to be making that big pitch like the elite ones do.”
Bradley has 90 strikeouts and 26 walks. He reached 100.1 mph against the Yankees, averaging 97.1 mph with 46 four-seam fastballs while mixing in 25 splitters, 20 cutters and eight curveballs.
“It looked like the cutter shape kind of changed all day,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “He mixed in some bigger, slower ones, had a good split going. So he kind of had a little bit of everything going and kind of a different look all day long for us and just kept us at bay and stayed off the barrel.”
After the game, Bradley still was excited about pitching in Yankee Stadium for the first time. His biggest mistake was running to the mound after the final out of the top of the seventh, not realizing “God Bless America” is played during the seventh-inning stretch of every Yankees home game.
“Nobody ran out there with me, either,” he said. “I was like, what the hell is going on?”
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