Another day, another opportunity for
“We're getting accustomed to him being an ace of a pitcher,” Indians third baseman José Ramírez said. “So we're really happy that he’s actually doing what he's doing right now.”
The Tribe’s 25-year-old ace has yet to record fewer than eight strikeouts in an outing this season, and he’s logged more double-digit strikeout games (three) than any other starter in the Majors.\n\nThough Bieber had his title of Major League strikeout leader taken from him for all of 24 hours when Reds righty Sonny Gray picked up his 45th strikeout in his fifth start of the year on Friday night, Bieber shot back to the top of the leaderboard with his impressive 54 strikeouts through Saturday.
\"He throws strikes,” Tigers second baseman Jonathan Schoop said. “He throws pitches that look like strikes and go ball, too. It's a tough at-bat against him. You just try to grind him and score runs. Today, you just have to take your cap off for him.\"\n\nWhen Bieber was breaking into the Majors in 2018, he was not known to be a strike-thrower. But he’s OK with the new role he’s taken on.
• Notes: Pérez's return; rotation plans
“It’s great with me,” Bieber said. “As long as I’m still a strike-thrower and a strikeout guy, I think that’s the best of both worlds. But I’m just gonna continue to be me. There’s a lot of things that I know I could get better at and continue to work on throughout the season, and we’ll see where it goes.”
Bieber’s first strikeout victim was Christin Stewart in the second inning, which began a stretch during which the righty fanned nine of 10 batters. He induced 23 whiffs -- the third most in an outing of his career -- on 48 swings, a whiff rate of 48 percent. His seven scoreless frames dropped his season ERA to 1.30.
“I mean, a night like this, he can execute almost every pitch,” Tribe catcher