The Detroit Tigers’ Tarik Skubal may have won back-to-back Cy Young awards, but it was the Twins’ Taj Bradley who appeared to deserve the honor in Minnesota’s 4-2 win over Motown on Tuesday.
Bradley was brilliant as he struck out 10 across six-plus innings, allowing just a run and no walks in the 104-pitch effort. He improves to 2-0 with a 1.08 ERA.
“Confidence continues to grow,” said manager Derek Shelton to MLB.com about Bradley. “Not only for us, but for him. To be able to go through that lineup, in our division, go toe-to-toe with Skubal, did not show any signs that he tried to do more than he should have. And he executed pitches.”
The game was scoreless through four innings and then the Twins broke it open in the bottom of the fifth with consecutive walks, followed by a single from Luke Keaschall and doubles from Ryan Jeffers and Josh Bell to make it 4-0.
Bradley would ultimately surrender one run and then the game was turned over to the bullpen with mixed results.
Taylor Rogers pitched a scoreless frame, but Cole Sands got into immediate trouble with two walks and received a quick hook from Twins manager Shelton. Enter Eric Orze who allowed the Tigers’ second run, and then the ball was handed off to Justin Topa, who again walked a batter before getting out of the inning and the game with a save.
Bailey Ober gets the ball Wednesday versus Framber Valdez who has always been a tough customer for the Twins.
Extra innings…
–Attendance dipped again on Tuesday to 12,341, down slightly from Monday. It was another cold night, although the weather is expected to be much warmer on Wednesday.
–The Twins had a total of six hits Saturday and Sunday and now they have 20 hits combined for Monday and Tuesday.