In our email exchanges last night, we were crapping on Bedard a little bit, bemoaning the fact that he was pitching like crap to the Twins. However, according to JoS, he may not have been pitching that badly, it's just that the umpire was calling balls and strikes irregularly. In true JoS fashion, he writes: "Home plate umpire Tim McClelland was squeezing Bedard as though the Boston lefty had defiled his daughter or run over his dog (or defiled his dog and run over his daughter)" and notes that "...even the Twins announcers were raising their eyebrows at McClelland's shitty calls." Click the link to see his computer analysis of the balls and strikes.
Moving to the other end of the game, I noted with pleasure this morning that Mariano Rivera gave up the winning homer and, according to hardballtalk.com, has "now allowed as many hits in 44 1/3 innings this season (39) that he did in 60 innings last year. His current batting average against of .241 would be his second highest mark in his 16 years as a reliever." Could the robotic Sox-killer finally be slowing down? I still don't want him to be up in a situation where it counts, but at some point the guy just has to start showing his age.
Finally, i'd be remiss (esp. considering how much i've been busting on the guy) if I didn't note that Papabalon has been lights out lately. He hasn't allowed a run in his last 12 appearances and in that time, as hardballtalk.com notes, "he's allowed just two hits and posted a 12/0 K/BB ratio. Papelbon hasn’t walked a batter since July 10, and he has a 64/8 K/BB ratio for the year." Here's hoping he can keep it up!
the first inning was incredibly bad... and i didn't have the volume on, so i wasn't privy to the announcers (NESN, as impartial as fox news) commentary, but i couldn't believe how awful the ump was. bedard gave up just one hit in the first, but the bases were loaded and he walked in a run. it was so bad that they showed the amica strike zone analysis thing on a particular at-bat and it showed 4 picthes all as strikes with the count at 3-1. it was ridiculous.
ReplyDeletei didn't keep the game on long enough to see pap, but he has definitely turned in on. maybe he's feeling some pressure from the rising bubble of bardness....
Of course, if the umpire is calling the left side of the plate too tightly (which is what the chart indicates) then a good pitcher should stop pitching there.
ReplyDeleteI've missed both of Bedard's games so far. But it's looking to me like he's going to be a reasonable #4 type pitcher, which I guess is what we need.