TORONTO – If his start against the Miami Marlins last week was a toe-dip back into big-league waters following reconstructive elbow surgery, Friday night against the Milwaukee Brewers was more of a leap into the deep end for Shane Bieber.
And the right-hander swam, often impressively, rather than sank against the team with the best record in the majors. He matched Freddy Peralta zero-for-zero through five innings, allowing just three hits, before Andruw Monasterio led off the sixth by clipping a full-count slider that spun out over the heart of the plate, opening the scoring. At 92 pitches, Bieber left one on and one out for relievers Brendon Little and Louis Varland, who let the frame unravel into a five-spot that was decisive in an eventual 7-2 Toronto Blue Jays loss.
Yet manager John Schneider saw more promise than the score suggests during a contest between division leaders, featuring duelling aces and October vibes for reasons beyond the brisk breeze that made 15 C feel more like 12 C, all before a sellout crowd of 41,390.
Asked what boxes Bieber still had left to check in his recovery, Schneider replied, “Nothing. At all. He’s as good as anyone in the game. … He’s got nothing to prove to me, to the league. He’s really (expletive) good.”
Despite that, the Blue Jays (78-57) lost for a third time in five games, shrinking their lead atop the AL East to three games over the New York Yankees (75-60), who beat the White Sox 10-2 to leapfrog the Boston Red Sox (75-61), 4-2 losers to Pittsburgh, into second place.
Matters were nearly compounded when Daulton Varsho left the game in the seventh after being hit on the right hand by a 96.9 m.p.h. fastball from Aaron Ashby. But Schneider said X-rays revealed no fracture and the centre-fielder will be re-examined Saturday.
Bullet seemingly dodged there, leaving the way Bieber responded to what Schneider described beforehand as a “good test” boding well for the Blue Jays’ trade-deadline bet on the 2020 AL Cy Young Award winner, who at the time was recovering from his elbow surgery.
In his first outing back, he allowed just a run on three hits over six innings of one-run ball against the Marlins, and may have been better in holding the Brewers to two runs on five hits over 5.1 innings, given that they’re “a pain in the ass line up that can do some damage, too,” said Schneider.
Not that Bieber necessarily saw it that way.
“Everything’s progress but for me, there was some frustration,” he said. “I thought that I could have finished stronger. But it’s a privilege to be frustrated again. So happy to take the good with the bad and move forward.”
The Brewers, who entered the game second in the majors with 140 stolen bases and first with a runners scoring percentage of 34 per cent, can cause all types of chaos, as well, but Bieber used his five-pitch mix to keep a lid on things.
Stuff-wise, he seemed like himself as well, as his fastball again averaged 92.7 m.p.h. while topping out at 93.8 m.p.h. and getting 12 whiffs, six on the heater and four on his slider.
At the same time he said he “would have liked to control the zone a little bit better throughout my outing … they had a good plan of attack, and they were able to lay off my changeup and slider below the zone and just outside of the zone. With how well they were able to do that, and I thought I competed well.”
In his mind, competing well means not giving in when he threw first-pitch strikes to 12 of the 20 batters he faced, a ratio he called “not great,” and his “overall strike-throwing was not as great as I would’ve liked.”
“So, continue to work on that and put that at the forefront of my mind going into my next outing,” Bieber continued. “But regardless of those issues, was able to get some outs and compete. Objectively, that’s one positive from the outing.”
He’ll try to build on that during his next start, which will either be Wednesday in Cincinnati or Friday at the Yankees, while the Blue Jays try to sort through the bullpen troubles that changed their opener with the Brewers from a squeaker to a laugher.
“We’ve got to come in and throw strikes,” said Schneider, a reference to Little walking Christian Yelich, the first batter he faced, after taking over from Bieber. “That’s the reality of it. You feel good about guys coming in. I always say that you always feel like you get the normal, good version of people coming in and you’ve got to come in and get your man. You’ve got to not give free passes. We’ve been doing that and it’s been coming back to hurt us.”
It did Friday night for the Blue Jays, who caught a glimpse of what Bieber might look like in October, against a top rival, and didn’t take advantage.