David Bednar has had some early-season struggles. He has blown as many saves in the first two weeks of the season as he did all of last season. However, that does not excuse those at PNC who on 4/9/24 Booed him during his struggle to locate his pitches. Pennsylvania: the state that, on one side, throws snowballs at Santa, and on the other side, boos their hometown kid and two-time All-Star. Many have written about paying fans the right to boo or cheer as they see fit. Sure, that could be an argument that can be made. At the same time, to again quote A.J. Burnett, if you decide to boo your own player then you need to “STFD” and additionally “STFU,” though that brings up the actual issue at hand, which would be: why is Bednar having this early season struggles?
Bednar’s first outing of the season went fine, he pitched a clean inning during the blowout of the Marlins. In his second outing, he blew the save giving up a solo home run to tie the game, though, when you break down that outing, he threw 10 of his 12 pitches for strikes and struck out two batters. While the blown save and solo home run were not ideal, that is still an effective outing, minus the one pitch. His next outing was a clean save opportunity with a pair of strikeouts, though his last two outings have been the ones that fans and pundits are having trouble with. In his first three outings, he threw 45 pitches with 33 of them being strikes, a 73.3% rate. Over his last two outings, he has thrown 50 pitches with only 27 of them being strikes, a 54% rate. Breaking down each of the past two poor performances further gives some insight into potential issues.
During the game on April 6th, Bednar began the game with a strikeout. He then gave up back-to-back singles, which was compounded by a wild pitch, advancing both runners. A fielder’s choice not resulting in an out scored a run and blew the save. The next batter ground into another FC. This one involved the out being accomplished at home plate. This was followed by a groundout to end the inning. So, what went wrong?
As the graph above shows, Bednar struggled to locate his fastballs. When he throws balls outside the zone, they are generally purposeful and usually one of his off-speed pitches. This issue continued into the game on the 9th where he blew the Pirates’ two-run lead.
Again, he was not locating his fastball in the strike zone; only three of the fastballs he threw were in the zone, and one was on a count where the batter was willing to take the walk. The inability to place pitches is what led to the loss. Bednar walked the first batter, hit the next batter, then gave up a single that scored one, and then a second on a throwing error that led to a ball in the stands. A ground out gave the crowd hope, but then, a single, another hit batter, and another single put the Pirates down by two and chased Bednar from the game.
There are a lot of potential reasons for what fans could be seeing. It could be an injury, either a new one or a lingering resurgence of what kept him out this spring. It could be that he is struggling once runners get on base; in the two more egregious blown saves, the wheels started to come off as soon as runners were on. It could be the fact that he did not get a real spring training, throwing only two innings and dealing with an injury. Or a litany of other, potentially personal things that are unknown to the fans and none of their business. At the end of the day, we need to trust that the Pirates and Bednar are aware of what might be the case and are dealing with it appropriately. Or, we can listen to the answer from the man himself:
Bonus:
Rowdy Tellez has taken a lot of flack from fans for his play, though in the clip below, he shows his true worth and importance to this team.
Leave a Reply