CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Following opening day in Oakland, Shane Bieber hoped that his aching elbow was nothing to worry about.
Then came his second start in Seattle.
Bieber’s season is over after an exam revealed that he will require Tommy John surgery.
“It was an emotional time,” Bieber said. “But the end results make things a little bit more confusing and a little bit harder, but it is what it is and we move on and I'm happy to have answers.”
Bieber, who hopes to undergo the procedure as soon as possible, threw 12 shutout innings combined against the A’s and Mariners where he allowed a total of 10 hits while striking out 20 and walking one.
It’s a bitter pill for the 2020 Cy Young award winner to swallow and he did his best to keep his composure while answering questions.
“Baseball will be there. I will be here. It's easy to keep things in perspective,” Bieber said. “It's just an injury that I'll get past. I'm not the first person that [suffered it and] won't be the last. I think one of the things that is a bit more difficult for me is that throughout the off season and in spring training I did figure some things out and my performance was getting back to the place that I knew I was capable of and I was falling back in love with pitching and I was having a lot of fun.
“And this group's great and they're capable of so much with or without me. I know I'll be a part of it, but just in a different capacity. So there's a lot of emotions that go into it, but that's one of them.”
While pundits and fans might want to point to the pitch clock as a contributing factor to the recent volume of serious pitcher injuries, Bieber doesn’t feel the clock was a factor.
“I already had a quick pace in the league, so not much was going to change for me other than feeling maybe a little bit rushed on pitch calling and runners on base and that sort of thing,” Bieber said. “I never thought specifically about the health of my arm or my ligament and my elbow. So I was more thinking about how it obviously will affect execution of pitches later in the game and how it might rush pictures, whether starters or relievers. So when that rule was implemented over a year and a half ago, no I wasn't thinking about my elbow.”
Making the situation even more difficult is Bieber’s contract.
Bieber is making $13.125 million in the final year of arbitration eligibility, and he can be a free agent this winter.
“It's a very real elephant in the room, so to speak,” Bieber said. “And it's unfortunate the timing of everything, but as athletes, you can't control some of these things. So we do what we can. We stay positive.
“I've got an amazing support system with my family, with my teammates, with everybody around here, and I'm excited to keep my head down, move forward, and it's easy to keep things in perspective. Things could be a lot worse, I'll put it that way… I'm still going through the process of working through my emotions with baseball and on and off the field. And I think that's important. I think that's important as a human being to be able to process your emotions, work through it and that I'm coming to terms with everything. And so the contract situation that'll work out how it's going to work out. I truly do believe that and I'll be fine either way.”