Shane Bieber had a solid big league debut and the offense was carried by the usual suspects, Frankie Lindor and Jose Ramirez, as the Indians overcame another mid-game bullpen breakdown to take the series opener with the Twins by the score of 9-8.

Bieber, celebrating his 23rd birthday with a call-up to the Indians less than two full years after being drafted in June 2016, was excellent through his first four innings.

Starting off primarily with four-seam fastballs and occasional sliders, he exhibited his pinpoint control from the get-go by painting the corners and striking out Brian Dozier to begin his Major League career. He tallied another strikeout of three-hitter Miguel Sano, which Yan Gomes parlayed into an inning ending double play when he threw behind the runner at first to pick him off and end the bottom of the first.

Bieber broke out his changeup in the second inning when he retired Logan Morrison and Eduardo Escobar on consecutive pitches. He then had his first three-ball count when he started Max Kepler 3-0 but rallied to get a ground out to end the inning.

His fourth pitch, a curveball, wasn’t even shown until the 4th inning when he showed it to Dozier leading off the inning and when he retired Morrison to end the frame, he was looking really good as the Indians led 8-0 and Bieber had allowed only two hits without walking a batter.

Unfortunately, the Twins started to get to Bieber in the 5th and chased him in the 6th but the Indians still led 8-4 at the end of six. Of course, as has been all to familiar this season, three relievers (Dan Otero, Jeff Beliveau and Zach McAllister) managed to give back the entire four run lead in the 7th and make a new game of it.

And instead of talking about a the crisp debut of an interesting young pitcher, the focus shifted to Lindor as he jacked his second homer of the game in the 8th, giving us the final score of 9-8.

It wasn’t an unusual formula tonight: shaky but adequate starting pitching, terrible middle relief and loads of offense at the right time to pull out the win. The victory puts the Indians (30-25) four and a half up on Detroit in the Central and further buries the Twins (22-30) as they fall to six and a half back. The Indians are now 14-5 against their own division, easily the weakest competition in baseball as the AL Central is the only division without at least two teams over .500.

The Indians and Twins are back at it tomorrow night, June 1st, with Carlos Carrasco (6-3, 3.98) facing Jose Berrios (5-5, 3.67).

 

Bieber Time

So what did we learn about Bieber in his debut tonight?

Well, let’s look at his pitch selection from baseballsavant:

He threw the four-seam fastball early and often and it accounted for 57 of his 88 pitches thrown (65%). He threw the slider early as his secondary offering but only threw fourteen all night. He mixed in the change in the second inning and threw that pitch six times and even though he didn’t show the curveball until the fourth inning, he threw eleven total before exiting in the sixth inning.

The fastball was consistently 92-95 mph and we definitely saw how Bieber paints the corners to get a lot of called strikes, particularly in the early going.

It will be interesting to see if this was truly just a spot start or if the team is going to go back to Adam Plutko when a fifth starter is next needed. And where does Josh Tomlin fit into this team, either as a starter or a reliever.

 

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