Bedard's hip is acting up again

Originally posted by Mark Leff on Apr 14th, 2008 at 11:09 PM.

Call me crazy, but I was disappointed to hear yesterday that Vladimir Guerrero, one of my starting outfielders, would not get a chance to bat against Seattle’s ace, Erik Bedard. Good as the Mariners ace is, Guerrero has had success against him, going 6 for 13 with a home run. The Angels as a whole have had their way with Bedard; they’ve hit .348 off of him.

The game worked out for me, as it turned out, with Vlad driving in two runs and scoring one. But Erik Bedard owners are doing now – panicking – what they will be doing through much of the season. As I posted before the season, Bedard is too prone to injury to be valuable. Just as Steve Trachsel was the human rain delay, Bedard ought to be known as the human disabled list.

If you own Bedard and are looking for good news, Bedard was scratched from his start last Sunday with the same hip soreness but went on to throw 107 pitches and get a win on Tuesday. On the other hand, the repetitive nature of the injury is a bad sign.

The Mariners are cautiously optimistic about Bedard. John McLaren told the Seattle Times, “We don’t think it’s a serious thing, but we don’t want it to become something serious.”

The Mariners got good news on the JJ Putz front. Their closer threw off a mound for six minutes and felt good. But that was not the headline for the Mariners yesterday.

If you drafted Bedard, you were likely prepared to lose him for at least some time during the season. Still, Bedard is rarely worth it. He’s never pitched 200 innings. Trade him.