And then five days after that, the Yankees came to town and snapped the historic winning streak, although it was hardly Radke’s fault as he allowed just two runs over eight innings in a 4-1 loss. I’m just sitting there starstruck.”īack in Minnesota three days later, enough time for the shock of Stern to wear off, Radke tossed seven innings of two-run ball against the Blue Jays to win his record-tying 12th consecutive start. Perverted, kind of light stuff that he talks about. I was just trying to make it up his alley. “All of a sudden, I got the (headphones) over my head and I’m talking to Howard Stern live. “I didn’t know that we were actually going to be on the radio,” Radke told Dan Hayes of The Athletic years later. At one point Stern even tried, unsuccessfully, to talk Radke and Myers into getting undressed for co-host Robin Quivers. Stern peppered Radke with questions about baseball groupies, his contract status, the Twins’ poor record and avoiding injuries during sex. Radke assumed they were just there to watch, but like many Stern guests over the years he was thrown right into the on-air fire. Twins trainer Jim Kahmann had a radio connection, so he took Radke and catcher Greg Myers to Stern’s studio. The team was in New York for a series against the Yankees, but Radke wasn’t slated to pitch after extending his winning streak to 11 starts two days earlier. 1 for an unexpected (and awkward) interview. Radke even found his way onto Howard Stern’s national radio show on Aug. Suddenly the soft-spoken Radke, always bashful when receiving any attention and the reluctant face of a 94-loss team, was national news, from “SportsCenter” to CNN. He took another big step forward in 1997, throwing 240 innings with a 3.87 ERA, including a headline-grabbing midseason run in which he won 12 starts in a row to tie the majors’ longest streak since 1950. The end result was a 4.46 ERA in a hitting-dominated environment where the league-average ERA for starters was 5.17. He soaked up 232 innings across 35 starts, boosted his strikeouts from 3.7 to 5.7 per nine innings and had the AL’s third-lowest walk rate. Radke allowed 40 homers in 1996, again most in the league, but progress was being made in just about every other area. Radke took every turn in the rotation and threw strikes, but he gave up a league-high 32 homers and managed just 3.7 strikeouts per nine innings on the way to a 5.32 ERA.
Back at Double A in 1994 for a full season, Radke posted a 2.66 ERA in 186 innings despite just 5.9 strikeouts per nine innings, issuing only 34 walks in 29 outings to write the first chapter of what would become the strike-throwing story of his entire career.ĭesperate for pitching after ranking dead last in the majors with a 5.68 ERA in 1994, the Twins surprisingly had Radke skip Triple A and handed the 22-year-old a spot in the 1995 opening-day rotation. Radke signed for $80,000 and progressed steadily through the minors, reaching Double A at age 20. Radke was skinny and didn’t throw hard, but Twins scouts Jeff Schugel and Kevin Malone liked the 6-foot-2 right-hander’s control and smooth delivery enough to talk amateur scouting director Terry Ryan into picking him in the eighth round of the 1991 draft. In this series, I’ll be shining some much-deserved light on the most underrated players in Twins history, telling the stories behind their underappreciated time in Minnesota and contextualizing their value in ways that often weren’t available in the moment.īrad Radke was born in Eau Claire, Wisc., but by the time the Twins saw him he was a high-schooler pitching in Florida.
0 kommentar(er)
