Bradley extends scoreless streak to 23 innings as Rays win series
Adam Berry
TORONTO — Kevin Cash has had a front-row seat to plenty of dominant starting pitching performances during his 10 seasons managing the Rays. Chris Archer racked up 252 strikeouts in 2015. Blake Snell won the American League Cy Young Award in 2018. Shane McClanahan started the All-Star Game in 2022.
But even Cash hasn’t seen anything quite like what Taj Bradley is doing right now.
“As good as any run that I’ve witnessed here being with the Rays,” Cash said. “And we’ve had a lot of really good pitchers.”
Thursday afternoon brought more of the same brilliance from the 23-year-old right-hander. Bradley pitched six scoreless innings with seven strikeouts, allowing only two hits and a walk in the Rays’ 13-0 win over the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre.
Over his last nine starts dating back to June 8, Bradley owns an MLB-best 0.82 ERA. That is the lowest ERA over any nine-start span in franchise history, excluding openers, topping the 1.03 mark that Snell put together during the stretch run of his Cy Young campaign.
Bradley has pitched 23 consecutive scoreless innings, tied for the third-longest single-season streak in franchise history and the Rays’ longest since reliever Collin McHugh went 23 scoreless from May 27-July 11, 2021.
Bradley’s latest gem, and the Rays’ highest-scoring offensive showing of the season, improved the Rays to 8-1-1 in their last 10 series. They moved back over .500, at 52-51, and pulled within four games of the final AL Wild Card spot.
The Blue Jays hardly challenged Bradley. They had runners on first and second after a pair of first-inning hits, but he calmly responded by striking out Justin Turner and Daulton Varsho to escape the inning. He retired 11 straight batters, walked Danny Jansen to lead off the fifth inning, then mowed down the next six batters in order.
It was a big day offensively for a handful of Rays. Isaac Paredes finished 2-for-5 with four RBIs; Alex Jackson had two hits and three RBIs; Amed Rosario picked up three hits, and Brandon Lowe went 4-for-4 with three RBIs and an upper-deck homer in the first inning off Chris Bassitt.
Lowe became the first hitter to reach the 500-level seats at Rogers Centre since … himself. Lowe and Austin Meadows hit the upper deck in the same game on April 12, 2019.
