{"id":671098,"date":"2026-04-08T22:48:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/671098\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T22:48:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:48:23","slug":"derek-shelton-praises-taj-bradley-after-duel-with-tarik-skubal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/671098\/","title":{"rendered":"Derek Shelton Praises Taj Bradley After Duel with Tarik Skubal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taj Bradley is starting to look like the pitcher the Minnesota Twins<\/a> hoped they were getting when they traded for him last summer. And his manager is noticing every bit of it.<\/p>\n

Bradley turned in another dominant outing on Tuesday night, holding the Detroit Tigers to just one run on six hits across 6 1\/3 innings while striking out 10 and walking nobody in a 4-2 win at Target Field.<\/p>\n

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It was his third start of the season and his third win, and it moved the Twins to 5-6 on the year while dropping the Tigers to 4-7<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Shelton Sees a Pitcher Who Trusts the Plan<\/p>\n

After the game, manager Derek Shelton pointed to something beyond the stat line.<\/p>\n

What stood out was the way Bradley carried himself against a dangerous lineup.<\/p>\n

“Confidence continues to grow. Not only for us, but for him,” Shelton said. “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.”<\/p>\n

Bradley was not out there trying to overpower everyone or nibble at the edges against a lineup that features back-to-back AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal<\/a> on the other side of the ball.<\/p>\n

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He trusted his stuff, mixed his splitter and cutter with a fastball that touched triple digits, and let the results come to him.<\/p>\n

The Tigers could not figure him out, and the standing ovation he received<\/a> walking off the mound in the seventh told the story.<\/p>\n

The Numbers Speak for Themselves<\/p>\n

Through three starts in 2026, Bradley has been one of the best pitchers in baseball and he owns a 2-0 record<\/a> with a 1.08 ERA, 22 strikeouts and just four walks across 16 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n

The Twins are 3-0 in his starts, and Tuesday’s outing was his best yet.<\/p>\n

What really makes this run even more impressive is the context, considering the Twins acquired Bradley from the Tampa Bay Rays for reliever Griffin Jax at last year’s trade deadline.<\/p>\n

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He had always shown top-of-the-rotation stuff during his time with the Rays, but he could never quite put it all together over a full stretch.<\/p>\n

An offseason spent refining his splitter and buying into Minnesota’s pitching plan has changed that, and the early returns have been special.<\/p>\n

A Statement Win in the Division<\/p>\n

Bradley went head-to-head with Skubal, who entered the night as one of the most dominant pitchers in the game, and he flat-out outdueled him.<\/p>\n

Skubal lasted just 4 2\/3 innings and gave up four runs on eight hits in what became a rare short outing for the two-time Cy Young winner.<\/p>\n

Ryan Jeffers provided the offensive spark with a pair of RBIs, and Josh Bell drove in the go-ahead run with a two-out double in the fifth.<\/p>\n

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The Twins’ bullpen<\/a> handled the rest from there, with Justin Topa picking up his first save.<\/p>\n

Minnesota still has a long way to go at 5-6, and nobody is crowning them just yet.<\/p>\n

But Shelton’s words about Bradley hit on something that pointed to the bigger picture with him.<\/p>\n

The young right-hander is giving this team a reason to believe every time he takes the ball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taj Bradley is starting to look like the pitcher the Minnesota Twins hoped they were getting when they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2388],"tags":[5,1728,53,6439,3541,4576,822,60,3190,4,1252,954,763,68,4131,148],"class_list":{"0":"post-671098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-twins","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-derek-shelton","10":"tag-detroit-tigers","11":"tag-griffin-jax","12":"tag-josh-bell","13":"tag-justin-topa","14":"tag-minnesota","15":"tag-minnesota-twins","16":"tag-minnesotatwins","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-ryan-jeffers","19":"tag-skubal","20":"tag-taj-bradley","21":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","22":"tag-the-twins","23":"tag-twins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116371528509980824","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671098","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=671098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}