Taj Bradley rebounded well in his second outing with the Twins, recovering from a rough team debut last weekend. Mick Abel, another young pitcher acquired at the trade deadline, not so much.
Bradley gave up one hit and one run across five innings Saturday night against the San Diego Padres. Once he exited, well, it was a new ballgame for the Padres offense.
Abel faced 12 hitters and recorded only three outs, giving up seven hits and six runs (five earned) during a blowout 12-3 loss at Target Field. The Padres erased a two-run deficit in the sixth inning and turned the game into a rout with a seven-run seventh.
The Twins have not won consecutive games since Aug. 6-8. They have lost 11 of their past 15 games, and Saturday they needed a position player, infielder Ryan Fitzgerald, to pitch the final inning.
Bradley, in a game filled with a lot of bad and ugly moments, served as one of the biggest bright spots. The righthander displayed many of the qualities that made him a promising young starter with Tampa Bay, striking out six.
He even added a new approach to this outing: He studied a scouting report.
“I just never did it at all,” said Bradley, who noted he didn’t study lineups or numbers in his previous 68 major league starts. “I was kind of out there blind the whole time. After my last outing, I had a lot of soft contact, so I figured now is the time. OK, get your head in the books, learn a bit about the hitters you’re going up against.”
In an era of analytics, there aren’t many pitchers who skip over scouting reports.
