Bradford continues to deal, but Rangers' bats can't back him

ARLINGTON -- When looking at the 2024 Texas Rangers, the title defense of the first World Series championship in franchise history leaves a lot to be desired.

But one thing that stands out above the rest is the development of a homegrown pitcher like Cody Bradford. On a night like Tuesday, when the Rangers fell, 4-0, to the Pirates at Globe Life Field, the 26-year-old lefty stood out as a lone silver lining.

Bradford didn't allow a baserunner over the first three innings, before allowing three runs in the fourth. Then, he shut down the Pirates’ bats, facing just one over the minimum over his final three innings of work. He tied a career high eight strikeouts, as he threw 71 of his 96 (73.9%) pitches for strikes.

It was Bradford’s first loss of the season, despite authoring a quality start.

Despite where the Rangers sit in the standings, Bradford’s success and development bodes well, both for himself and the organization. It’s been a disappointing season, but Texas expects to compete again in 2025.

Bradford will no doubt be a part of that.

“I don't know if these next six weeks are all that important to him, because we know how good he is and what a great job he's done with us, starting or coming out of the bullpen,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “He gave us a chance to win. You'll take those seven solid innings there. His arm is fresh. He's missed a lot of time. He was out there in the seventh, 90 pitches and still locating with good stuff, just like last game. It’s always good [for him] to get some work done after you’ve missed so much time.”

Bradford was arguably the Rangers’ best starting pitcher before he landed on the injured list on April 14.

At that time, he had a 1.40 ERA in 19 1/3 innings across three starts. He was holding opposing batters to a .145/.169/.203 slash line. Then a nagging back/rib injury kept him on the shelf for months while the Rangers struggled to string wins together.

The 26-year-old barely missed a step in his return. He has now posted a 2.63 ERA across seven starts for Texas this season, the lowest ERA by any Rangers pitcher over the first seven starts of an age 26-or-younger campaign since Nick Martinez in 2015 (1.88 ERA).

Bradford said it’s almost reassuring to know that he can pitch as well as he has at this level.

“I still feel young in this game,” Bradford said. “I feel like I learn something new every single outing. I definitely try to be a student of the game and learn where I can improve. Baseball's the same sport, so it doesn't matter if you're in the big leagues or if you're in the Little League World Series, if you can have confidence as a pitcher, and [Rangers pitching coach Mike Maddux] says, ‘The hardest thing to do is trust your stuff.’ If you can trust your stuff and have confidence that you may not throw the hardest, but you can actually throw pitches where you need to more times than not, the results will be good.”

Despite all the good from Bradford, the Rangers lost in fairly typical fashion.

While Bradford and the pitching staff fought to keep things within striking distance, the Rangers offense never advanced past first base. Texas had just three hits, all singles from Josh Smith, Carson Kelly and Josh Jung.

Pittsburgh starter Mitch Keller struck out nine Rangers, while walking none. He induced 13 whiffs.

"We just couldn't get anything going,” Bochy said. “[Keller] is a good pitcher, and he had good stuff tonight. You just got to battle. That's all you can do. And hopefully somebody gets you going, but we couldn't get guys on base. We couldn't put pressure on them. Sometimes you have a night like this, I get it, but you know, to your point, you just have to keep battling.

"The plan wasn't to be patient. We took a lot of pitches to get a good pitch to hit, but we're looking to be aggressive up there, but in a smart way. He was locating it and we just couldn't catch up with it tonight."