ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Twins right-hander Taj Bradley said Friday night “felt like another game.’’ But for Bradley, it was atypical. And extremely forgettable.
The Rays had a blast during Bradley’s return to Tropicana Field, where he spent most of his first three big league seasons. Bradley surrendered four monster home runs – two each to former teammates Junior Caminero and Jonathan Aranda, shots that totaled a Statcast-projected 1,701 feet – and the Twins were dumped 6-2.
Bradley (3-1) had not surrendered any homers in five previous starts (over 27 2/3 innings) this season. The Twins (12-14) have dropped seven of their last eight games after an 11-7 start.
“Three of the homers were hit on pitches that were 97 or 98 [miles per hour],’’ Twins manager Derek Shelton said. “The [81 mph] breaking ball to Aranda was a bad pitch. Other than that, two good young hitters just got him today.’’
Bradley was fairly efficient, exiting with one out in the seventh inning on 93 pitches. But surrendering four homers – for the third time in his career – hurt. Dating to 2022, the Twins have lost 23 straight games in which they surrendered four (or more) homers.
“I felt good overall,’’ Bradley said. “To let me go into the seventh, it’s something I’ve been fighting with these past five outings, just throwing too many pitches and not going as long as I could have. I was a little below zone with my slider and splitter and a little above zone with my splitter, too. I feel like they didn’t help me too much throughout the game.’’
On Bradley’s fifth pitch of the game, Caminero made him pay, rocketing a 450-foot solo shot onto the screen above a batter’s eye structure in dead center field.
“You don’t see a lot of balls hit up there,’’ said Shelton, a former hitting coach with the Rays for seven seasons.
Aranda led off the fourth inning with a 402-foot rainbow to right field, then followed in the sixth with a 414-foot blast. In the seventh, after pulling one a few feet outside the left-field foul pole, Caminero slammed a 435-foot drive to center that made it 6-1 and finished Bradley’s night.
Bradley insisted the familiar setting and his ties to the Rays did not influence the results.
“Too much time has passed for me to think about things like that,’’ said Bradley, who compared facing Caminero and Aranda to a “Spring Training game.’’
“Taj handled himself well emotionally,’’ Shelton said. “I thought he was in a good spot. I mean, two really good young hitters got balls in the middle of the plate. I think we see why those guys hit second and third in the lineup. Because they're really good hitters.’’
The Twins scored on a pair of solo homers – Brooks Lee’s in the fifth and Royce Lewis’ in the ninth. That wasn’t nearly enough against Drew Rasmussen (2-0), who surrendered five hits over six innings.
Shelton said the Twins haven’t played bad baseball during their 1-7 stretch, but they’re failing to capitalize on opportunities. With the Rays leading 2-0 in the fourth, Trevor Larnach led off with a bloop single, then raced to third on Austin Martin’s double. With two runners in scoring position and nobody out the Twins went strikeout, strikeout, popout.
“We have to capitalize [there],’’ Shelton said. “Just by putting the ball in play, we make it a 2-2 game or a 2-1 game. That was the swing in the game. We didn’t execute and then we gave up a homer [to Aranda] to start the next inning. That was it.’’