{"id":661735,"date":"2026-04-03T23:29:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T23:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/661735\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T23:29:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T23:29:14","slug":"derek-shelton-explains-taj-bradleys-maturation-after-dominant-outing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/661735\/","title":{"rendered":"Derek Shelton Explains Taj Bradley’s Maturation After Dominant Outing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Minnesota Twins<\/a> needed someone to step up on Thursday, and Taj Bradley answered in a big way.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old right-hander threw six scoreless innings against the Kansas City Royals, giving up just five hits while striking out three and walking one in a 5-1 victory at Kauffman Stadium.<\/p>\n

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Bradley’s Best Stuff Was on Display<\/p>\n

The outing was a significant jump from his season debut against Baltimore, where he struck out nine batters but lasted only 4.1 innings because of a high pitch count.<\/p>\n

Against Kansas City, he was far more efficient and controlled, and the biggest moment of his afternoon came against one of the best hitters in baseball.<\/p>\n

With runners on in the third inning, Bradley struck out Bobby Witt Jr. to end the threat, and manager Derek Shelton was clearly impressed by what he saw<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“It was 100 [mph] with like 23, 24 inches of vert, you don’t see that very often,” Shelton said. “And we’re talking about [against] a guy that’s led baseball in hits the last two years and is one of the best players. I think [Bradley] wanted that at-bat. He went back and got it. It’s good to see.”<\/p>\n

That kind of confidence in a big spot is exactly what Minnesota has been hoping to see from Bradley since they acquired him from Tampa Bay last summer<\/a> in exchange for reliever Griffin Jax.<\/p>\n

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Through two starts this season, he owns a 1-0 record with a 0.87 ERA, 12 strikeouts and a 1.16 WHIP, and the early returns suggest the Twins may have gotten exactly the kind of arm they were hoping for.<\/p>\n

A Rotation That Can Still Compete<\/p>\n

Shelton didn’t stop at the highlights, though.<\/p>\n

He talked about where Bradley is in his overall development and what this kind of performance means going forward.<\/p>\n

“We’ve talked about it with Taj, there’s going to be maturation, and today we saw another step of maturation,” Shelton said.<\/p>\n

That maturation matters a lot for a Twins team that is still trying to find its footing at 2-4.<\/p>\n

Minnesota lost Pablo Lopez for the entire 2026 season after he underwent an internal brace procedure on a torn UCL in his right elbow back in February, which left a massive hole at the top of the rotation.<\/p>\n

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Joe Ryan has stepped into the ace role, with Bailey Ober and Simeon Woods Richardson also holding down rotation spots<\/a> alongside Bradley and Mick Abel.<\/p>\n

None of those guys carry the track record that Lopez does, but the raw talent is there, and Bradley is the one showing the most early-season growth.<\/p>\n

His fastball has been sitting around 97 mph this year with a noticeable jump from the 96.2 mph average he posted in 2025, and he even touched 99.6 in his first start.<\/p>\n

If that velocity sticks and he continues pitching deeper into games the way he did against Kansas City, the Twins rotation might not miss Lopez as much as people expected.<\/p>\n

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Minnesota heads home Friday to open its first series at Target Field this season, hosting the Tampa Bay Rays with Bailey Ober on the mound.<\/p>\n

It also happens to be a reunion of sorts for Bradley, who will get to face his former team when his next turn comes around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Minnesota Twins needed someone to step up on Thursday, and Taj Bradley answered in a big way.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2388],"tags":[760,143,5,1351,1728,6439,12626,1455,2123,55,5158,822,60,3190,4,761,1997,297,3478,1555,763,2550,148],"class_list":{"0":"post-661735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-twins","8":"tag-bailey-ober","9":"tag-baltimore","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-bobby-witt-jr","12":"tag-derek-shelton","13":"tag-griffin-jax","14":"tag-joe-boyle","15":"tag-joe-ryan","16":"tag-kansas-city","17":"tag-kansas-city-royals","18":"tag-mick-abel","19":"tag-minnesota","20":"tag-minnesota-twins","21":"tag-minnesotatwins","22":"tag-mlb","23":"tag-nick-martinez","24":"tag-pablo-lopez","25":"tag-rays","26":"tag-simeon-woods-richardson","27":"tag-steven-matz","28":"tag-taj-bradley","29":"tag-tampa-bay","30":"tag-twins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116343378091520064","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}