Bedard vs the White Sox
Posted by cookinwithgas on July 4, 2006
Wow, was that a heckuva performance by Bedard or what? I have long been an advocate of both keeping Bedard in Baltimore and keeping him the rotation. It looks my patience is being rewarded.
He is now 9-6 with a 4.44 ERA (which is amazing considering where his ERA was about two weeks ago). His 4.13 FIP ERA (adjusted by THT), 4.27 TP ERA (I’ll explain this stat in a later poste), and 4.14 adjusted XERA all suggest that there are still better things to come for Bedard. His 70.7% LOB Rate and and 12.7% HR/OFFB Rate are also indicators that there’s been nothing lucky about his game. More importantly in my eyes, his 3.22 BB-Rate, 8.3 BB% and 2.22 Command Rates serve as career bests up to this point. His 7.14 K-Rate, 18.39 K% and 0.96 are all close to his normal ranges.
Prior to the season I wrote an article for OH praising Daniel Cabrera for his combination of a high K-Rate and a high ground ball percentage (GB%). I showed that at least over the last four years pitchers with that combination have the most success. Well, in addition to his now high K-Rate (which is an even higher 9.93 over his last four starts), Bedard now has a GB% of 48.26.
Mark my word, Erik is now well on his way to being one of the best pitchers in the American League.
