CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Once he got through the first inning, there wasn’t much the New York Yankees were able to do to Shane Bieber.
The Guardians 2020 Cy Young winner was dazzling after a bumpy first inning and he worked seven to earn his first victory in 2023 and Cleveland rallied from an early two-run deficit to take the opener 3-2.
Here’s our Final 9 takeaways from Monday night’s win that pushed Cleveland to 7-4 on the young season.
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1. Another nailbiter, but another win for the Guardians who won their league-leading fourth one-run game of the season and finished their sixth one-run contest, also the most in baseball.
2. Bieber was lucky to escape the first inning trailing 2-0. Five of the first six Yankees reached with three of them collecting hits. Gleyber Torres ripped the first pitch of the night from Bieber into the left field corner. “Pretty much started the game with runner on second,” Bieber said. “That's never fun. And then a lot of hard-hit balls after that.” After Aaron Judge walked, extending his on-base streak to 43 consecutive games dating back to last season, Anthony Rizzo singled before Giancarlo Stanton ripped a two-run double off the wall in left center. The exit velocities of the first four balls put in play off Bieber: 106.8, 106.2, 116.3, 108.7. “They were taking some pretty healthy swings,” Guardians manager Terry Francona said. “To his credit, he gets out [of it] with two. Probably a good thing that Stanton used a two iron, not a four iron or that might have [been bad], because he hit that ball about as hard as you can. But then from there, Biebs was back to Bieber, which I don't know how easy that is to make that transition, but he sure did it.”
3. Bieber really settled in after that first inning. He retired 16 of 20 batters after that. At one point Bieber sat 12 straight Yankees down between the second and sixth innings. “I'm glad we came out on top,” Bieber said. “Just to be able to get through seven and limit the damage in the first. And then James did an unbelievable job there in the eighth. He came up huge for us…So credit to Mike [Zunino], obviously what he did on the offense side of the ball, but also defensively, I think he helped us all out quite a bit.” When it was all said and done, Bieber’s final line: seven innings, two earned runs on five hits with four strikeouts and three walks.
4. Catcher Mike Zunino reached base all four times by collecting three doubles and a walk. “I got some good pitches to hit,” Zunino said. “I think it's one of those things where just not trying to do too much. It's one of those things, I've seen these guys quite a bit, so it's one of those where I was just trying to stay within myself [and] had some good opportunities there.” Zunino is the first Guardians catcher since Lou Marson to collect three doubles in a game. Marson also did it against the Yankees May 29, 2010. Zunino’s third double, which came in the bottom of the eighth, stayed on top of the padding under the scoreboard insert in the left field wall, costing the Guardians a potential run as Will Brennan, who would have scored easily from first after walking, was sent back to third base on the ground rule double. “We caught a bad break when that ball hit the screen or netting whatever it is out there and didn't bounce back,” Francona said. “I've never seen that in 11 years here. That's a big bad break.”
5. Josh Naylor broke the 2-2 deadlock in the bottom of the seventh by hitting a rope to center, scoring Steven Kwan, who walked, from third.
6. James Karinchak appeared to be in serious trouble in the top of the eighth when Straw was unable to make a diving catch of a liner to center of the bat of Torres. The ball got by Straw and rolled to the track for a leadoff triple, but Karinchak escaped unharmed. Judge popped up to second, then Rizzo and Stanton struck out to end the threat as Karinchak roared and pumped his fists as he left the mound before chest-bumping and hugging Zunino. “I'm happy I had gear on, that's for sure,” Zunino said. “But no, I love it. I mean, guys that play with emotion, guys that pitch with emotion, the key is to balance it, but I mean that's well deserved. That was a huge inning there and going through that part of the lineup and getting those outs was really the difference in the game.”
7. Myles Straw extended his hit streak to 10 games with an infield single to short in the bottom of the second while Jose Ramirez saw his hit streak come to an end at 15 games dating back to last season. Straw can tie his career-long hit streak from September 13-21, 2022 with a hit Tuesday.
8. Josh Bell’s slow start continues following an 0-3 night that did see hm walk and score a run. “I don’t think he's very happy with his at bats, but he's not short changing anybody on effort, on being a teammate,” Francona said. “He's just got a slow start, and I've probably told this room a million times – hitters that have a resume, a baseball card, they'll get as hot as they got cold, and when he does, it'd be fun to watch. In the meantime, just got to be patient because if you're not, you miss out on what could be some really good stuff.”
9. Emmanuel Clase picked up his third save of the season with a quick 1-2-3 ninth that saw him strike out two.