Taj touches 98, unveils new cutter/slider in spring debut

PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. -- Taj Bradley’s first pitch Tuesday raised some eyebrows around Charlotte Sports Park. Making his Spring Training debut, the 23-year-old right-hander fired a fastball to Johan Rojas that zipped across the plate around 98 mph.

“Reassured that he had a good offseason,” manager Kevin Cash quipped after the Rays’ 5-4 loss to the Phillies.

Bradley said he didn’t intend to come out pumping gas that way, noting he felt relaxed on the mound and “nice and easy” in his delivery. And it probably wasn’t even his most interesting offering of the afternoon.

Bradley has been working on a new pitch, a cutter/slider, to complement his existing four-pitch mix: fastball, splitter, cutter, curveball. He worked in a few during his incredibly efficient 2 1/3 innings of work on Tuesday as he retired seven of the eight hitters he faced.

“More like a five-pitch mix,” Bradley said afterward. “Something to get under the bats a little bit to lefties and righties also, just so pitches aren't tunneling the same and they can get [the] bat on [the] ball.”

The Rays have been tinkering with Bradley’s pitch shapes, looking to create some velocity separation between his fastball (which averaged 96.4 mph last season), cutter and splitter (both 90.9 mph last year) and curveball (79.1 mph). If it gives him another weapon and keeps hitters off-balance, that’s the idea.

Bradley was pleased with everything he did against the Phillies, not just the new pitch.

“Pitch count was there. The [innings] were there,” Bradley said. “The pitches were there. In-zone was there. So it was like [I] checked all my boxes.”

A bigger box that Bradley hopes to check is a full season’s workload. He began last season on the injured list with a right pec strain, but he still managed to pitch 138 innings (second most on the team, behind Zack Littell’s 156 1/3) over 25 starts after working 104 2/3 innings over 23 appearances (21 starts) in 2023.

For all the potential workload concerns and limitations facing other Rays starters, Bradley is perhaps the one best prepared to pitch a substantial number of innings this year. He’s certainly hoping to do exactly that.

“I want to be like the guys back in the day, man -- 32 starts, 200-plus innings, stuff like that,” Bradley said. “If I work my pitch count the way I did today, I'll be able to do that in the future. So that's just me. … I want to be, like, more the old school of pitching, not the five-and-out, but six-plus, seven-plus, [give] my team a chance to win and then let the bullpen take it from there.”

Injury updates
? Cash said catcher Ben Rortvedt will miss a few games due to a “cranky” right shoulder. After serving as the Rays’ primary catcher last season, Rortvedt is slated to work this season behind free-agent addition Danny Jansen behind the plate.

? First baseman/outfielder Xavier Isaac, MLB Pipeline’s No. 51 overall prospect, is currently sidelined due to soreness in his left elbow. Isaac, a first baseman by trade before he added outfield reps to his job description late last season, started feeling an issue in his elbow when he began ramping up the intensity of his throws from the outfield. It’s unclear how much time, if any, he will miss.

Around the horn
? Considering their focus this spring on timely hitting and scoring runners from third base, there was a big cheer from the Rays dugout in the third inning when Yandy Díaz slapped a groundout to second base that scored Chandler Simpson from third.

Cash was pleased with the whole sequence. It began with Simpson, an early Spring Training standout, smacking a single and stealing second base. Then catcher Logan Driscoll advanced Simpson to third with a groundout to second, setting up Díaz for another productive out.

“Mentally, within ourselves, there's certain situations that [hitting coach Chad Mottola] has been putting out to the hitters, regardless of who's on base and stuff like that,” Cash said. “When it comes, take the opportunity to do it. It matters.”

? Infielder Curtis Mead continued his encouraging start to the spring, going 2-for-3 with an RBI double.

? Reliever Edwin Uceta struck out all three batters he faced in his first inning of the spring, and lefty Mason Montgomery breezed through his inning. Non-roster lefty Jake Brentz allowed two runs on one hit and three walks while recording just one out.

? The following relievers faced hitters in live batting practice on Tuesday: Mason Englert, Joey Gerber, Manuel Rodríguez, Garrett Cleavinger, Jacob Waguespack, Hunter Bigge and closer Pete Fairbanks. Cash said they all looked good, with Fairbanks’ session the biggest highlight.