Taj Bradley To Undergo MRI Due To Pectoral Tightness

Right-hander Taj Bradley was scheduled to start today’s Grapefruit League contest for the Rays but was a late scratch. The righty is dealing with pectoral tightness and will get an MRI, per Kristie Ackert of the Tampa Bay Times (X links).

At this point, it’s unclear if the club considers the issue to be severe or if scratching Bradley was more precautionary, but the MRI suggests at least some level of concern. For the time being, it will likely be a source of worry for the club and its fans, especially with the precarious nature of the club’s rotation depth.

Last year, each of Jeffrey Springs, Drew Rasmussen and Shane McClanahan underwent a UCL surgery of some kind. McClanahan is likely to miss the entire 2024 season while Rasmussen and Springs are likely looking at midseason returns. In addition to those injuries, the club also flipped Tyler Glasnow to the Dodgers in a cost-cutting move.

Coming into 2024, the Tampa rotation projects as Zach Eflin, Aaron Civale, Zack Littell, Ryan Pepiot and Bradley, with plenty of question marks in that group. Eflin made 31 starts last year but has battled persistent knee issues in his career and 2023 was just his second time getting over 130 innings in a season. Civale has dealt with various ailments, including shoulder, forearm and wrist injuries, having never hit 125 frames in any big league season of his career. Littell has primarily been a reliever and was only moved to a rotation gig by the Rays last year. Pepiot, acquired in the Glasnow deal, has been a notable prospect but has less than 80 big league innings to his name. His 127 2/3 innings in 2022, between the majors and minors, are his personal high.

Bradley came into 2023 as one of the club’s better prospects but didn’t hit the ground running in the big leagues. He posted a 5.59 earned run average in 104 2/3 frames last year, despite strong strikeout and walk rates of 28% and 8.5%, respectively. He may have been hampered by a 67.7% strand rate but his 23 home runs allowed on the season also may have played a role in that. ERA estimators remained fairly bullish that he deserved better than his bottom line results, as he had a 4.79 FIP and 3.82 SIERA last year.

Regardless of how one interprets last year’s results, Bradley clearly came into camp as a key part of the rotation mix. With the absences of McClanahan, Rasmussen and Springs and the general uncertainty around the healthy options, Bradley was clearly going to be in the plans in Tampa.

If he ends up needing to miss any time, the club will have to dig even further into its starting depth. Shane Baz is on the roster but will be facing workload limitations this year after he missed all of 2023 recovering from Tommy John surgery. Japanese hurler Naoyuki Uwasawa is in camp on a minor league deal but there were concerns about his viability in the majors and he has allowed 13 earned runs in 5 2/3 spring innings thus far. Jacob Lopez is also on the 40-man but has just 12 1/3 innings of major league work thus far.

There’s a fair amount of precarity in that group overall and any further subtractions will only exacerbate the situation, so the club will surely be hoping that the MRI doesn’t find anything terribly concerning for Bradley’s health.