Mariners Blog

Geoff Baker covers the Mariners for The Seattle Times. He provides daily coverage of the team throughout spring training, and during the season.

July 7, 2009 at 2:36 PM

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Erik Bedard should provide a boost to Seattle Mariners in the Pythagorean department

Posted by Geoff Baker

Despite the Mariners sitting four games above .500, there has been some hand wringing about all of the one-run victories registered by the club.

In fact, if you look at the team's run differential, they've scored 325 runs and allowed 338 for a minus-13 score. According to the math wizards who've developed the Pythagorean Expectation, the team should really be 40-42, as opposed to 43-39.

Well, perhaps Erik Bedard can get the team into the positive side of the ledger. I'll explain why.

Bedard actually tends to give up a minimal amount of runs, regardless of how many innings he throws. And when he leaves the game, the Mariners are usually right in the thick of things or ahead. The big knock on him since he arrived in Seattle is that he can't go 100 pitches, or more than five or six innings, slowed largely by injury.

But in the games he has started, his team has a +7 run differential. It's even better than that if you take out some of the stuff beyond his control, like bullpen performance or late rallies by his hitters. When Bedard leaves a game, his team has had a +11 run differential this year.

This team could use a few more guys on the positive end of the scale.

Lets look at how they've done, as starting pitchers.

Hernandez...+28 overall, +22 when leaving game
Washburn...+7 overall, +2 when leaving game
Olson...minus-2 overall, +2 when leaving game
Vargas...minus-8 overall, minus-8 when leaving game
Morrow...minus-9 overall, zero when leaving game

The Mariners have a higher run differential only when Felix Hernandez leaves a game. Otherwise, its at its run differential best as Bedard is coming out.

For what it's worth.

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Comments (23)

Yet in this article you call Bedard a guy that has trouble throwing 100 pitches and getting past the 5th inning. Uh, well, I also said... Posted on July 7, 2009 at 4:11 PM by geoff baker. Jump to comment

Math wasn't my strong suit in high school or college, but I understand 43-39. The Reds lost 22-1 last night, and in spite of the margin of... Posted on July 7, 2009 at 2:55 PM by T$. Jump to comment

Well Geoff, it seems that you just contradicted yourself. In your article that lobby's for the keeping of Bedard instead of trading him for a... Posted on July 7, 2009 at 3:38 PM by BranyanFanyan. Jump to comment

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Erik Bedard should provide a boost to Seattle Mariners in the Pythagorean department

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