Rays’ Taj Bradley has a 0.92 ERA since early June, even lower than Pirates’ Paul Skenes

Bradley gave Ana Mosley plenty to cheer about. The 23-year-old right-handed pitcher threw seven shutout innings of one-hit ball in the Tampa Bay Rays’ 9-1 win over the New York Yankees on Saturday. His 0.92 ERA in eight starts since June 8 is the best in the major leagues in that span, trailing even the 1.14 mark held by 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 forced upon him.”

Scouts were there to see Westlake outfielder Lawrence Butler, who would be drafted in the sixth round by Oakland and made his major league debut last August. Bradley was starting to get some attention.

Now he can laugh about what would have happened if he hadn’t been noticed that day.

“I would work at Walmart or something,” he said.

Bradley, who initially transferred from Hillsborough Community College in Florida, went to South Carolina. He was selected 150th overall by Tampa Bay in the fifth round of the 2018 amateur draft and signed for $747,500, more than double his slot value of $343,600.

He worked his way up through the minors with stops in Princeton, West Virginia; Bowling Green, Kentucky; Charleston, South Carolina; Montgomery, Alabama; and Durham, North Carolina. Bradley made his major league debut on April 12 of last year, was immediately sent back 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 postponed when he pulled his right pectoral muscle during warmups before his second start of spring training on March 12, and he didn’t make his first major-league appearance until May 10.

He started 1-4 with a 5.81 ERA, hitting a low point in 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.

“I didn’t really dwell on the events of that day,” Bradley recalled. “‘Hey, your stuff was good. They just hit some good pitches,'” they told him.

When Bradley pitched in the Bronx, he knew the atmosphere would be different.

“Even in the bullpen you get booed,” he said.

Bradley (5-4) allowed his only hit against the Yankees when Ben Rice doubled in the first inning. Bradley grounded out Juan Soto, then retired Aaron Judge and Austin Wells.

“He just got into a rhythm and we played into his game plan,” Rice said, “and just hit the rim a little bit.”

Bradley is 4-0 in 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 he’s had?” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “He seems to handle every challenge that’s been thrown at him really, really well. Whether it’s adversity in the first inning or later in the game when he’s got 75, 85 pitches, he seems to make that big pitch like the elite do.”

Bradley has 90 strikeouts and 26 walks. He reached 100.1 mph against the Yankees, averaging 97.1 mph on 46 four-seam fastballs while mixing in 25 splitters, 20 cutters and eight curveballs.

“It seemed like the cutter shape changed all day long,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “He mixed in some bigger, slower ones, had a good split. So he had a little bit of everything and a little bit of a different look for us all day long and just kept us at bay and stayed off the barrel.”

After the game, Bradley was still excited about pitching in Yankee Stadium for the first time. His biggest mistake was running to the mound after the final out of the seventh inning, not realizing that “God Bless America” ​​is played during the seventh inning of every Yankees home game.

“Nobody was running with me,” he said. “I thought, what the hell is going on here?”

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