Athletes - Brad Radke

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	Athletes - Brad Radke

Brad Radke (born October 27 1972) is a right-handed starting pitcher for the Minnesota Twins. He has been in the organization for almost 15 years, and on the major league team for almost 10 years.

Biography

Radke was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and graduated from Jesuit High School of Tampa where he was known as a scholar-athlete.

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 consistent 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

Wins - 127
Losses - 118
Games - 319
Games Started - 318
Complete Games - 34
Shutouts - 9
Innings Pitched - 2088.0
Hits - 2232
Runs - 1048
Earned Runs - 982
Home Runs - 269
Base On Balls - 390
Strikeouts - 1267
Hit Batsmen - 54
Avg. ERA - 4.23

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.

Highlights

All-Star (1998)
Led league in strikeout-to-walk ratio (5.27-to-1, 2001)
7th in the league in strikeouts (174, 1997)
2nd in the league in complete games (six, 2001, tied with Mark Mulder
, behind only Steve Sparks
)
Ranks #16 in strikeout to walk ratio, #7 among active players (3.249/1)
Ranks #38 in lowest walks per nine innings pitched ratio (1.681), #1 among active players

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Brad Radke ]

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