OAKLAND — If this is the Shane Bieber the Guardians are going to see every fifth day in 2024, the team has a lot to be excited about.
Bieber was stellar for the Guardians on Thursday night, leading his team to an 8-0 Opening Day victory over the A’s at the Coliseum with six scoreless innings and 11 strikeouts. He became the sixth pitcher in AL/NL history to record at least 10 strikeouts in three or more Opening Day performances, joining Randy Johnson (four times), Bob Gibson (three), Pedro Martinez (three), Félix Hernández (three) and Max Scherzer (three).
Etching your name in more record books is always fun, but this outing told a much bigger story than Bieber making history.
Bieber showed signs all spring that he was getting back into his vintage form. Since 2021, his velocity had dipped, his curveball had been less sharp and he had started giving up harder contact. It wasn’t that he was ineffective, because he still found ways to own a 2.88 ERA in 2022 and a 3.80 ERA in ’23, but he had to be more creative than he did in ’20 when his untouchable arsenal led him to an easy AL Cy Young Award win.
Suddenly, he’s looking like he’s in peak form yet again.
What started as hopeful signs in Cactus League outings translated to a promising foundation in Game 1 on Thursday, as his fastball averaged 1 mph faster than all of 2023, the contact he gave up was softer (88.4 mph) than his average last season (91.6 mph) and his strikeout total reached double digits for the first time since Sept. 1, 2022.
