I'd ask this question ...
His Ks are down ... but his innings are up (last two starts). Is there an actual tactical decision here to "accept" the weak groundout more than before rather than "going for" the K -- (and creating the 8 foul marathons that have kept Bedard a 6 innings pitcher)?
I once described Bedard as a "max effort" pitcher ... not a truly literal description, but more to get across the concept that he doesn't generate "easy" innings often - and that SOP might well be related to his history of arm troubles. In looking at the Tuesday night box ...
2nd inning - 3 groundouts (8 pitches)
3rd inning - foul, ground, fly (12 pitches)
4th inning - fly, ground, ground (11 pitches)
5th inning - ground, line, K (10 pitches)
After the shaky first, his next 4 innings were not only 1-2-3 ... they were low 'effort'.
Does fangraphs keep a "foul ball" percentage? Seems like Erik's is waaaaay down recently.
Q. With such good stuff, why did he get only six swinging strikes and only three strikeouts?
A. Several reasons. For one thing, Bedard always has a higher K rate than --- > you'd expect for his SwStr%. That's because his yakker freezes batters for called strikes.
I'm sure one day Hardball Times will publish the article showing that guys with great curves "K-Outperform" their swing/miss rate.
So:
- Bedard's a called-strike pitcher, to some degree
- The ump refused to call the low curve
- The Rangers were simply good at fouling it off, Tuesday
- ML batters in general now --- > fight off his curve defensively...
- ... leading to a blizzard of weak grounders ...
- ... typically early in the count (no BB's or K's that way)
- Bedard's fastball is not yet a weapon
When Bedard is whipping the located FB by them for strikeouts, the curve K's will kick in also.
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Q. How's the changeup developing?
A. Three starts ago, it was painful to watch...
On May 3, Brooks had it for a full 10" of armside run and 10" of deadfish drop.
I didn't care for the arm action; he short-arms and telegraphs it, to me. But! In the seventh inning, he threw three of 'em that were Jamie Moyer quality.
If Erik Bedard developed a plus deadfish changeup, I wouldn't know who in baseball history to compare him to.
He may go through a career transition here. A whole lot of pitching stars do, and some of them are better in their second versions. Moyer himself being an obvious case in point.
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Q. How was the strike zone on Tuesday?
A. Brooks had Bedard at 9 pitches taken away, 0 given back. (The rookie Ogando, who was wild, at 4 taken away, 0 given back.)
Particularly in the first, there were three terrible calls that hurt badly. And the ump's refusal to call the curve breaking down out of the zone hurt even worse.
Sometime in the next few starts, an ump is going to call those low curves, Bedard is going to hit his spots with his fastball, and Bedard's going to fan twelve men.
.........
But in Detroit, Bedard got comfortable with two out in the fifth. Today, he got comfortable during some part of the third.
Next time, he'll probably be comfortable if they don't get him in the first, which is where he was in 2006-07: get him in the first, or don't get him at all.
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Q. What about the long fly ball Young hit out to the wall? That's a 3-run homer in Texas.
A. Sure, but:
- It came after Bedard struck Young out on pitch 5 above
- Blanco was only on 1B due to --- > two silly blown strike calls in the middle of the plate
- If Guti runs that ball down, you all just applaud "Well, that's Guti"
- Take it out of Bedard's earlier 29% HR/F rate
- Most of the ballgame consisted of two-hop grounders
We're asking, how well did Bedard throw. Even in the first, he threw well. Pitchers are at the mercy of circumstances.
C'mon, he gave up two hits -- one a four-bouncer through a drawn-in infield. And SEATTLE MARINERS FANS apologize for a ball to the warning track off their pitcher.
Well, at least the expectations are high :- )
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Q. Anything else?
A. 33 pitches in, were you thinking seven innings? The man is a gamer.
Bedard's coming on. He's visibly improving, from one game to the next game. I like where this number sequence is headed.
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BABVA,
Dr D
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Comments
I believe that Bedard's chief injury risk has been and will continue to be his tendency to labor unnecessarily..gamely refusing to throw anything but his K pitches to even inferior hitters who he should be going right after. The most annoying thing in the world to me is watching Bedard have an 11 pitch at bat against some pounk like Blanco who has no power and is not dangerous because he keeps trying to get the kid with located curve balls rather than just blowing up his hands with a good jam pitch like he can and accepting the groundout.
I think he would do well to just pound the strikezone...his pitches are good enough to cause a ton of weak contact if he'd aim for the dead center of the plate and let them move around on their own. But he's always trying to be an artist and he wastes more pitches than he should. The career 17.4 P/Inning ratio is HORRIBLE for a guy with his stuff.
was a surprise to me last night, I hadn't realized he's been throwing it. I remember when he was first traded for, Doc said something to the effect of, "He's got a show-me change, but that's all it is, this is a 2-pitch pitcher". And it's true, but last night we get the quote,
"As the game progressed, the changeup got really good and the curveball did too."
That's from Bedard.
It's not like he's throwing a ton of change ups, a little over 10% so that it's really just change of pace pitch instead of a show me pitch, but he's already thrown more than he did in 2008 and 2009 combined.
M's have another shot at Capt. Jack's Three Aces concept with King, Kong, and Erikkk.
Will throughly enjoy every series during which the M's run out the Triple Guns! Love that Texas is already experiencing their second volley :-)
One more solid 'pen arm, as Doc reasoned, would really come in handy in locking down these thinnest of leads, as there are bound to be many more. *knock on wood*
Without any question, the Rangers were topping his curves into two-bounce groundouts and he just kept going to the well. That much is a fact.
It's possible that he was going to the curve early in the count --- > without setting up high-FB/dropoff curve K sequences, for example. Using the yakker as a Brandon Webb sinker, as it were.
Solid post man.
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This was the first game in which SSI took the changeup seriously (yes, we know how important that is to Erik).
Maybe it's coming along for him. Like we thought the yakker jelled during the Jackson AB, last night we thought the change jelled during the last two innings.
Could be wrong about the latter, but it looked like it.
...........
10% changeups, if it really has 10" by 10" movement, would be plenty. It would ratchet up his strikeouts considerable....
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