Bedard Back From the Dead

This past week, the CDC issued guidelines on how to survive a Zombie Apocalypse. “In such a scenario,” the CDC warns, “zombies would take over entire countries, roaming city streets eating anything living that got in their way.”

Scoff at your own peril — the living dead are already in our midst. In the Pacific Northwest, Erik Bedard is feasting on the flesh of AL hitters.

Once one of the premier starters in the game, Bedard and his killer curve had long since been buried in the minds of fantasy players. The lefty topped the five WAR mark in both 2006 and 2007, but a hip injury and surgery to remove a cyst from his shoulder limited him in 2008. The next year, a torn labrum in his shoulder seemingly put the nail in the coffin of his career. Bedard didn’t toss a pitch in the majors in 2010 while rehabbing from the procedure and inked a non-guaranteed, one-year deal with the M’s for a million bucks (plus possible incentives) this past winter.

While Bedard’s first four starts led many to believe that he’d be an easy zombie kill, the 32-year-old has terrorized opponents since late April. With the string of strong performances, Bedard now has a 3.55 xFIP in 45.2 innings pitched. That’s 10 percent better than the MLB average, and ranks in the top 20 among qualified AL starting pitchers. Clearly, this zombie won’t be distracted by something as simple as fireworks (no word yet on whether he can be tricked by splashing a little blood and guts on the uniform).

Bedard has struck out 8.08 batters per nine innings, while issuing 3.35 BB/9 and maintaining a fairly neutral ground ball rate (42 percent). On the whole, he hasn’t blown hitters away — his 7.2 percent swinging strike rate is below both the 8.4% MLB average and his 9.2% career mark. But Bedard is getting ahead in the count and then enticing batters to lunge at pitches thrown out of the strike zone. His first-pitch strike percentage sits at 61.1 (59% MLB average), and his 30.1% outside swing rate also bests the 28.8% big league average

He’s a five-pitch hurler, but Bedard is munching on his victims mainly with four-seam and two-seam fastballs thrown in the low-90s and a still-sharp upper-70s curveball. Bedard is hitting his spots with both types of heaters, and his four-seamer is generating whiffs. His big bender isn’t making hitters miss much, but he’s burying that pitch for strikes at will:

(Pitch F/X data from TexasLeaguers.com)

Bedard has been one of the better starters in the game over the past month, giving rise to the hope that those glory days from ’05 and ’06 aren’t gone forever. But zombies aren’t known for their health, of course, and Bedard could be a pitch away from tweaking or tearing something, or maybe even losing a limb or two.

While Bedard is healthy, though, you best heed the CDC’s warning. The best way to stave off this grave threat is to quarantine Bedard on your team’s roster.

The living dead walk (and pitch) amongst us. If you ignore Bedard and he keeps on ravaging hitters, don’t say we didn’t warn you.