Jackie Bradley Jr.

BIOGRAPHY

Jackie Bradley Jr. was born April 19, 1990, in Richmond, Virginia. He is an outfielder in the MLB.

Bradley attended Prince George High School in Prince George, Virginia. He was named to the 2008 Virginia AAA All-State team and was listed as the 40th-best Virginia-based baseball prospect for the 2008 Major League Baseball draft by Baseball America.

With the University of South Carolina, Bradley began his college baseball career with the South Carolina Gamecocks baseball team in 2009. As a freshman, Bradley hit .349 and scored 69 runs in 63 games played. Posting a slugging percentage of .537, he hit 11 home runs while walking 34 times and striking out 31 times. After the 2009 season, he played collegiate summer baseball with the Hyannis Mets of the Cape Cod Baseball League.

Between April 24 and May 25, Bradley hit safely in 29 straight games, tying Johnny Damon for the fourth longest hitting streak in Red Sox history. Bradley's streak came to an end in a loss to the Colorado Rockies on May 26. At the time he started his hitting streak, he was batting .222, and when it ended, he had raised his average up to .350. This streak, along with excellent defense, earned him AL Player of the Month recognition for May. Bradley was selected to the All-Star Game, the first of his career. He started in left field, and was 2-for-2 at the plate. He ended the 2016 season with a .267 batting average, 26 home runs, and 87 RBIs, having appeared in 156 games.

On October 14, in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series against the Houston Astros, Bradley drove in three runs with a double in the third inning, giving Boston a 5–4 lead in a game they would go on to win, 7–5. In Game 3, he hit a grand slam off of Roberto Osuna in the top of the eighth inning, extending Boston's lead from 4–2 to 8–2, which would prove to be the final score. In Game 4, he hit a two-run go-ahead home run off of Josh James in the top of the sixth inning, putting the Red Sox up 6–5 en route to an 8–6 final. Bradley finished the series with nine RBIs, all from those three hits, and was named the American League Championship Series Most Valuable Player. The Red Sox went on to win the World Series over the Los Angeles Dodgers; he batted 3-for-13 in the World Series. Bradley later received his first Rawlings Gold Glove Award.