Taj Bradley Outduels Tarik Skubel In the Twins' 4-2 Win

Minneapolis – Tuesday night at Target Field was billed as a pitcher’s duel between the reigning back-to-back American League Cy Young Award winner, Tarik Skubal, and the Minnesota Twins starter Taj Bradley.

The matchup was skewed in the Detroit Tigers’ favor going into the game. However, Minnesota's lineup surprised many as they rallied for a four-run fifth inning, knocking Skubal out after 4 ⅔ innings, and winning the game 4-2.

“I think confidence continues to grow,” said Twins manager Derek Shelton on Bradley’s performance Tuesday night. “Not only for us, but for him. To be able to go through that lineup, in our division, go toe-to-toe with Skubal, [he] did not show any signs that he tried to do more than he should have.”

Taj Bradley dominated the Tigers, producing his seventh career outing with 10 or more strikeouts. He only allowed one earned run through 6 ⅓ innings on 104 pitches.

Bradley’s fastball wasn’t working for him as well as early in the game, as he only got 1 swing and miss on the 20 swings the Tigers took against him. So Bradley leaned more on his splitter against Detroit’s lineup, a pitch he worked on this offseason and didn’t know how it would turn out.

“Had some rough bullpens with it, had some great bullpens with it, live and learn,” Bradley said. “Then, going into spring training this year, just said, 'Forget all the metrics about it. If I feel comfortability with it, I'll just make it a good pitch.'

“He’s not going to go out there and be Greg Maddux,” Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers said. “That’s not who he is. He’s not going to pitch to corners. He’s going to come at you with his stuff. Adding more stuff to the mix just makes him a better pitcher.”

Bradley did pitch well with it against Detroit’s lineup, getting nine swings and misses, and six of his 10 strikeouts on the night with his splitter. While Bradley leaned on the splitter on Tuesday night, he was still able to rack up a strikeout on each of his pitches: one on the fastball, two on the curveball, and one on his cutter. The splitter has become an effective pitch for Bradley, but relying on each pitch to get strikeouts has become essential for him.

“It makes me unpredictable and stuff like that, so they can’t just go ‘Oh, with two strikes, I’m going to look for something that pops out of hand, which is the curveball,’” Bradley explained. “No, you’ve still got to be on the heater, the cutter, the splitter, and the curveball all at once. I just think it makes it that much more difficult.”

Minnesota’s four-run fifth inning provided insurance for Bradley. The Twins had been chipping away with their at-bats against Skubal throughout the night. They had compiled five hits against him through the first four innings. However, Byron Buxton got a lead-off single in the fifth inning that kept things moving for Luke Keaschall, Jeffers, and Josh Bell to each generate an RBI.

“We’ve got runners on there, and Keaschall comes up with a big hit,” said Jeffers. “Two walks start that inning, Keaschall comes up with a big hit. But yeah, for me, just trying to continue to extend the AB and hopefully find a hole. Happened to poke a backdoor slider down the right field line.”

“It seems like [bradley] doesn’t need more than a couple of runs out there, and then he can just kind of take the reins and drive us home,” said Bell. “It was awesome to be able to come through for him and take a little bit of the pressure off and keep him going out there.”

The Tigers scored two runs off Minnesota’s relievers. Still, the bullpen held onto the lead and provided Bradley with his second win of the year. A lot of the talk coming into Tuesday night’s game was on the pitching matchup, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t something that crossed Bradley’s mind at all.

“We've got universal DH. I don't have to face him,” said Taj Bradley. “So that's out of my mind. I give all that credit and stuff like that to get good at-bats together to the offense and stuff like that. I'm just focused [on the] defensive side. Just keep them in a good chance to win, no matter who's on the other side of the mound.”

“Our hitters have to attack Skubal, and their hitters have to attack Taj,” said Derek Shelton. “That being said, for a young pitcher, you know the other guy is on the mound and you know it’s going to be a low-scoring game, and you have to execute pitches. He went out and did that. I thought it was really impressive.”