Payoff pitch.
After a steep offseason learning curve, Cody Bradford has had opponents in the palm of his hand.
Cody Bradford had been on a roll. In a whirlwind of a season that saw him bounce between the Rangers and their Triple-A Round Rock club eight times, starting games and finishing games and doing everything in between while with Texas, he was getting regular work from Bruce Bochy and Mike Maddux by September, with the team in a fight for a playoff berth that had eluded it for seven years. Over nearly 50 innings — six starts and 11 relief appearances — Bradford was holding opponents to a .234 batting average and striking them out nearly four times as often as they walked. His ERA was 3.80.
A season-ending injury to Max Scherzer on September 12 meant the Rangers needed to elevate someone into the rotation. Though Bradford threw 42 pitches on September 14, he was the choice to get the start on September 17 in Cleveland. It didn’t go particularly well. He gave up six runs on seven hits in three-plus innings, and Texas lost, 9-2.
He didn’t pitch the next eight days, and probably wouldn’t have on the ninth day, either, until Martin Perez — slated to return to the rotation for a September 26 start in Anaheim — was called on to throw 40 pitches in relief two days earlier in a tense 9-8 win over Seattle. Bradford was tabbed once again for a spot start.
And once again, he gave up six runs on seven hits, this time in four-plus innings. He had no feel that night for the changeup, the equalizer in his arsenal.
After David Fletcher singled and Randal Grichuk doubled to lead off the fifth, Bochy came to get the ball from Bradford, who made the long walk back to the visitors’ dugout. He sought out Scherzer.
“Hey, what do you do, what do you get back to, when something's not working?” Bradford asked the future Hall of Famer. “I just didn't have a good feel for my pitches today. What do you do?”
What happened next blindsided the normally unflappable rookie.