Two scouts from major league teams stood on a hill behind home plate Tuesday at Seneca Valley, and put a radar gun on Will Bednar’s pitches. One gun showed 94 mph in the first inning. The other hit 95 later in the game.
This wasn’t out of the ordinary for a kid from Mars who is fast becoming all the rage of WPIAL baseball.
Bednar has torched many batters in recent weeks and Tuesday he continued his mastery of teams when he struck out 16 and pitched a six-hitter as Mars defeated Trinity, 2-1, in a WPIAL Class 5A first-round playoff game.
“The temperature getting warmer is definitely helping,” Bednar said. “When it’s warm, I stay nice and loose. But throwing 95, it’s still kind of crazy when I think about it.”
Bednar was known as an excellent pitcher coming into this season. He already had made a verbal commitment to Ohio State. But his heat index has gone to another level lately. He hit 95 mph in a game April 30 against North Hills. Against Trinity, he was consistently in the 92-93 range. You’ll be hard-pressed to find any WPIAL pitcher ever who has thrown 95 mph, let alone a junior.
Word is starting to spread about this 6-foot-1, 215-pound right-hander, who is the son of Mars coach Andy Bednar. Major league scouts don’t like to go on the record with comments about high school kids. One scout Tuesday said “next year there will be 15 guys at every one of his games.”
Now, get a load of what Bednar has done in his past four games: He has 57 strikeouts and four victories, all against playoff teams. He struck out 15 against North Hills, 15 against Fox Chapel and then 11 against Hampton.
“I think he’s just getting into a groove now,” Andy Bednar said. “It’s tough to get in a groove with the weather the way it was. This is good, hard-throwing weather now.”
But even Dad acknowledges that he didn’t quite expect this much heat from his son.
“I think one of the big things was that he worked really hard in the offseason with his travel team [Pittsburgh Diamond Dogs] and he did a lot of working out,” Andy Bednar said. “He did a lot of work with heavy balls and just overall conditioning, and I think that’s paying off.”
Against Trinity, Bednar threw only 91 pitches.
“I’ll be honest, we haven’t seen anyone like him,” Trinity coach Shawn Allen said. “We scrimmaged Peters Township and they had a kid throwing pretty decent, but nowhere near his velocity. That’s real stuff.”
Mars (13-5) had only five hits off Trinity pitchers Kyle Steele and Camden Zaken. Two stolen bases set up both runs. In the first, Jack Anderson had an RBI single and Frank Craska had an RBI single in the third. Trinity (5-10) scored in the fourth when Steele singled home Tanner Hudak, who had tripled.
“Their pitcher did a nice job keeping us off balance,” Andy Bednar said.
Will Bednar struck out the side in the first and had three strikeouts in the seventh. He throws a fastball, curveball and change, but it’s not a secret what is most successful for him.
Bednar has some eye-opening statistics for the season. He now is 7-0 and has allowed only five runs (four earned) in 45⅓ innings. He averages two strikeouts an inning, with 92 for the season. He has walked only eight.
“One of the things I’m really happy about is how he is throwing strikes,” Andy Bednar said. “Normally guys with a lot of strikeouts might meet their pitch count pretty quickly. But he hasn’t.”
Mars will play in the quarterfinals Monday against Laurel Highlands, at a site and time to be determined. Will Bednar can come back for that game. But the semifinals are scheduled for a day or two later. If he pitches in the quarterfinals and wins, Bednar would not be able to go in the semifinals.
So, is there a decision to be made? Should Dad try to save Will in hopes of getting past the quarterfinals?
“No, you have to win the games at hand,” Andy Bednar said. “He’ll go the next game. That’s what the goal is – to win. If we get to the semifinals, you worry about that on that day.”
Mike White: mwhite@post-gazette.com and Twitter @mwhiteburgh.
First Published: May 16, 2018, 2:13 a.m.
