Brad Radke (born October 27 1972) is a right-handed starting pitcher for the Minnesota Twins. He has been in the orginization for almost 15 years, and on the major league team for almost 10 years.
Biography
Radke was born in Eau Claire, Michigan.
Radke was not considered a top prospect before being drafted in the 8th round of the 1991 amateur draft by the Twins. Once he was in the majors though, he was valued highly and the Twins were offered a large amount of talent for him, but they never gave him up.
In his debut season (1995), he finished 11-14 with a 5.32 ERA. It was not a great start, and he vowed to improve as a pitcher. He did just that in the next two years. In 1997, he finished an excellent season with a 20-10 record and a 3.87 ERA. He finished the year with 239 innings pitched, 4th most in the league.
For the past 9 years, he has been known as one of the most consistant pitchers in the game. Besides his debut season (5.32), he never finished above a 5.00 ERA. Besides his 2004 season (3.48), he has never finished below a 3.50 ERA. In his career, he is a solid 127-118 with an overall ERA of 4.23.
He is known for being one of the best control pitchers of the modern era, walking an average of only 41 batters a year, in an average of 34 games a year.
Career Statistics
Batting
Being in the AL, interleague play has only forced him to bat 23 times. He has 3 hits, a .130 batting average. He has 0 walks, but 2 sacrifice hits.
Postseason
Before the 2002 season, his Twins team was generally one of the lesser teams of the league. But since 2002, they have made the playoffs each year. His postseason totals are very solid with an overall 3.19 ERA in 31 innings pitched.
His best postseason series was his first, against Oakland. He started 2 games out of the 5, winning both with a 1.54 ERA. Radke only gave up 1 run in the deciding game of the series before the 5-1 Twins lead was almost squandered in the 9th, when Eddie Guardado gave up 3 runs. But the Twins won 5-4 and advanced to the 2002 American League Championship Series . He would go on to lose the only game he pitched against the Angels, but shut them out for the first 6 innings of that game. In the end, the Twins bullpen and offense failed and they lost 7-1 and lost the series 4-1.
He is 2-2 overall in the postseason.
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