WASHINGTON – Toronto pitcher Shane Bieber’s outing against the Washington Nationals was far from easy.
The former Cy Young Award winner walked six of the nine batters he faced – including three with the bases loaded – before leaving after two-thirds of an inning Tuesday night in the Blue Jays’ 8-6 defeat. In his previous 149 pitching appearances, the 31-year-old right-hander’s highest number of walks had been five.
According to Stathead/Baseball Reference, Bieber is now the 11th pitcher in major league history to issue at least six walks while recording two outs or fewer, and he’s the first to do so since Florida’s Ryan Dempster on October 5, 2001, at Atlanta.
Bieber mentioned that he struggled with gripping the ball and his command suffered because of it. He didn’t walk anyone in his last start Thursday, where he allowed just one run over seven innings against Tampa Bay.
“You have to find a way to get through it, right, and I wasn’t able to do that tonight,” Bieber said. “Ultimately, I follow up what was maybe my best start as a Blue Jay with what was definitely my worst.”
Bieber is the first Cy Young winner to experience such a performance; however, Hall of Famers Bob Feller and Christy Mathewson had similar outings. Bieber won the AL Cy Young award in 2020.
Bieber threw 42 pitches during this game but only managed to land 15 for strikes. He is now the second player this season to throw that many pitches while having so few strikes. Kansas City’s Eric Cerantola threw only 14 strikes in a similar relief outing against Tampa Bay on June 30.
“I have no excuses,” Bieber said. “I have to find a way to get out of that first inning. Dry my hands off and change shirts and eat up innings after that. That’s what I was trying to do and unfortunately I wasn’t able to. I don’t think I’ve ever had anything like that happen.”
Washington’s James Wood began with a walk, followed by Luis García Jr., who grounded out to second base. Dylan Crews then walked as well, and CJ Abrams hit an infield single.
The usually aggressive Keibert Ruiz walked on four pitches for the first run, while Daylen Lile drew another walk for another run. Nasim Nuñez followed up with a sacrifice fly before Jorbit Vivas loaded the bases again by drawing yet another walk-this being the fifth-and prompting a mound visit from Toronto pitching coach Pete Walker.
Jacob Young took six pitches-three balls followed by two called strikes plus a slider way outside-to force in a fourth run which led manager John Schneider to approach the mound and end Bieber’s outing.
This marked Bieber’s seventh start of the season after missing nearly three months due to elbow inflammation. He had been limited to just nine regular-season starts over two seasons following Tommy John surgery back in April 2024.
“Kind of just not what we expected from him there,” Schneider said. “When you reach that pitch count early on with him given his history and everything else, we just didn’t want to push it.”
Reliever Brendon Little got Wood out on a ground ball to finish off the inning.
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