Schilling on Bedard

O's ace gets props from key member of Evil Empire Jr.

By Matthew Taylor

"His numbers are staggering, even more so when you consider he’s doing it in one of the most offensive oriented divisions in the game."

-Curt Schilling

On Sunday, Erik Bedard took his first loss since June 10. And while he wasn't nearly as sharp as he's been on most nights this summer, Bedard did manage to set the Orioles' single-season strikeout record - 221 and rising.

Here's what Curt Schilling recently wrote on his blog, 38 pitches, about Bedard. (Full disclosure: a co-worker sent it to me; I'm not a regular reader.)

"In the past few weeks I think we’ve seen four of the top 7-10 young pitchers in all of baseball in Eric Bedard, Scott Kazmir, Jason Shields and Joe Saunders. After seeing Bedard this spring I was under the impression that this was the year he’d stop flying under the radar but I didn’t expect him to be this dominant this fast. His numbers are staggering, even more so when you consider he’s doing it in one of the most offensive oriented divisions in the game."

It's good to see Bedard getting respect from his opponents. Pretty soon they'll even spell his first name correctly. Isn't that right, Kurt?

More on Bedard's "Reputation"

By Matthew Taylor

"Imagine, in the Age of Celebrity, a guy would prefer to be left alone. Sounds like he’s got his head on straight."

Be sure to check out Oriole Post's article from Thursday on Erik Bedard's visit with fans at the ESPN Zone. The piece seems to support the main premise of a post Chris wrote on Roar from 34 last weekend, namely that Bedard doesn't deserve a negative reputation simply because he doesn't like to talk to reporters.

One commenter on Oriole Post shared the same sentiment: "Anyway, I think an event like this is far more indicative of how Erik Bedard is as a person than how he deals with the media. Quite honestly, though I know I'm biased, I think the media just expects too much out of him sometimes. You want him to answer your questions? Fine, he answers them. It's ridiculous to then complain about the answers he gives or the length of them - I half expect them to hand him a script to read from. 'We'd really like it if you'd just say this...'"