WACO, Texas - Baylor baseball sophomore left-handed pitcher Cody Bradford has been selected for the 2018 USA Baseball Collegiate National Team roster, joining Baylor teammate Shea Langeliers.
Bradford is the ninth player in program history named to the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team. He joins Pat Combs (1988), Jason Jennings (1997-98), Bryan Loeb (1998), Jon Topolski (1998), Zane Carlson (2000), Michael Griffin (2003), Kendal Volz (2008) and Langeliers (2018).
Bradford will participate in a game against the Coastal Plain League Select and a series against Chinese Taipei, and he'll be competing for a spot on the final 24-man roster that will play a series against Cuba and Japan.
An Aledo, Texas, native, Bradford became the first Baylor player to be named Big 12 Pitcher of the Year. He also picked up Collegiate Baseball All-America third team honors, was named 2018 Big 12 Championship Co-Most Outstanding Player after helping the Bears win the first Big 12 Championship tournament title in program history, and he was selected to the CoSIDA Academic All-District team.
Bradford finished his sophomore season 7-6 with a 2.51 ERA and two complete game shutouts in 14 starts. He led the Bears with 87 strikeouts in a team-high 96.2 innings and limited opposing hitters to a .240 batting average.
Bradford was even better in Big 12 Conference play, posting a 4-3 record with a 1.88 ERA and two complete games. He struck out 49 batters in 52.2 innings over seven starts, averaging more than 7.1 innings per start. His 1.88 ERA broke the Baylor record for best ERA by a starting pitcher in a Big 12 season, which was previously held by Josh Turley with a 1.92 mark in 2012.
He became the first player in program history to post back-to-back complete game shutouts when he accomplished the feat by throwing a one-hitter in a 6-0 shutout of TCU on April 20 and shutting down Kansas State 18-0 on April 27. Bradford was also recognized as Big 12 Pitcher of the Week three times in 2018, becoming the first BU pitcher to pick up three conference weekly awards in a season since Mark McCormick in 2005.
The USA Baseball Collegiate National Team will participate in three international friendship series in 2018, beginning with the 18th USA vs. Chinese Taipei International Friendship Series that will be held in North Carolina from June 28 through July 2. The U.S. will then compete in the 42nd USA vs. Japan Collegiate All-Star Series from July 3-9 in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina and the seventh-annual USA vs. Cuba International Friendship Series in Cuba from July 13-18.
Seven Collegiate National Team games will be streamed live on USABaseball.com, as well as Facebook Live and YouTube. For more information on USA Baseball and the Collegiate National Team, follow @USABaseball on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter; and @USABaseballCNT on Twitter.
