CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Indians have spent much of the first half of the season looking for a dependable No. 5 starter for their rotation to slot in behind Corey Kluber Womens Eli Manning Jersey , Trevor Bauer, Carlos Carrasco and Mike Clevinger.
The Indians think they might now have found their No. 5, and he will be on the mound Friday night at Progressive Field against the Detroit Tigers.
He’s 23-year-old right-hander Shane Bieber. A fourth-round pick by the Indians in the 2016 draft out of UC Santa Barbara, Bieber (1-0, 3.97 ERA) will be making his third start for the Indians, which he landed with his strong performance in the minor leagues this year.
In a combined 12 starts at Double-A Akron and Triple-A Columbus, Bieber was 10-5 with a 1.29 ERA. In 76 innings, he struck out 72 and only walked six.
Bieber is a premier strike thrower. In 2017, pitching at three minor league levels, he was 10-5 with a 2.86 ERA. In 173 innings, he had 162 strikeouts and only 10 walks.
Bieber’s last major league start came June 17, a 4-1 win over Minnesota, in which he pitched 5 2/3 innings and gave up one run, 10 hits Womens Saquon Barkley Jersey , with seven strikeouts and one walk.
“He comes as advertised. He threw a lot of strikes, with one walk. He gave up a lot of hits, but because he didn’t walk anyone, and executed a lot of good pitches with men on base, he came away allowing just one run,” Indians manager Terry Francona said.
Bieber has made two spot starts for the Indians this year, but after his last one, team officials decided to give Bieber a longer look in the rotation.
“This is the first time he’s pitched for us and not gone back down (to the minors) after he pitched,” Francona said. “I think settling into a routine at the big-league level will be good for him. To be able to watch guys like (Corey) Kluber during the week will really help. The people in our player development department rave about his temperament, his makeup and his work ethic.”
The Indians come into Friday’s game riding a four-game winning streak in which they have outscored their opposition 28-6. That includes a three-game sweep of the White Sox in which they outscored Chicago 24-5.
Bieber’s mound opponent Friday night will be right-hander Mike Fiers, who has pitched well against Cleveland during his career.
In two starts against the Indians this year, Fiers is 1-0 with a 1.38 ERA, having allowed two runs and eight hits in 13 innings with 13 strikeouts and two walks. In six career starts against Cleveland, Fiers is 3-1 with a 2.04 ERA.
Fiers’ last start was a 4-3 Tigers win over the Chicago White Sox on June 15. Fiers worked 5 1/3 innings Authentic Mike Evans Jersey , allowing three runs and eight hits with four strikeouts and one walk. He did not get the decision.
Although the Tigers are three games below .500 at 36-39, they come into Friday’s game in second place in the American League Central, five games behind the division-leading Indians. Detroit had a five-game winning streak snapped by losing both games of a brief two-game series on Tuesday and Wednesday with Cincinnati.
Fox and the NFL have agreed to a five-year deal for Thursday night football games.
Those games previously were televised by CBS and NBC, two of the league’s other network partners. Fox announced Wednesday that it will televise 11 games between Weeks 4 and 15, with simulcasts on NFL Network and Fox Deportes.
Fox, which has the Sunday afternoon NFC package, will produce all of the games under the deal, which is worth a little more than $3 billion, according to a person with direct knowledge of the terms of the deal who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the league didn’t announce its value.
”This is a single partner deal, we are not splitting the package,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a conference call. ”We had tremendous amount of interest from all the broadcast partners, all of whom wanted it exclusively. We felt this was the best opportunity for the NFL to grow the Thursday night package.”
Goodell added that the league is exploring partnerships with digital outlets, also in conjunction with Fox.
The NFL has broadcast deals ”five years out” with its other partners – ESPN has the Monday night package – so five years on this agreement made sense.
”Fundamentally, Fox was built on football Womens Mike Evans Jersey ,” said Peter Rice, president of 21st Century Fox, nothing that 25 years ago, the NFC package ”helped launch a fledgling network into what it is today.”
”These opportunities come along very, very infrequently,” he added. ”You either have the rights to the most-watched content in media or you don’t. If you don’t take the opportunity, this won’t come up again for five years. We believe in buying the very best rights, and the best rights are the NFL.”
CBS and NBC each paid $450 million for the previous two-year package.
”We explored a responsible bid for Thursday Night Football but in the end are very pleased to return to entertainment programming on television’s biggest night,” CBS said in a statement. ”At the same time, we look forward to continuing our terrific long-term partnership with the NFL on Sunday afternoons, with more than 100 games per season including next year’s Super Bowl 53.”
Fox could have a conflict if weather causes a World Series game to be postponed from Wednesday to Thursday. In recent years, Series Game 2 and 6 have been scheduled for Wednesday.
”In that hypothetical kind of a scenario, the World Series game would stay on Fox and our Thursday night game would become an FS1/NFL Network simulcast,” Fox spokesman Eddie Motl said.
Goodell noted that the Thursday night games are a place for innovation.
”One of the things we’ve taken into consideration with Thursday night in general is to evolve this package Authentic Jameis Winston Jersey , to use it as an opportunity to learn, to understand where these various platforms are going, and what we can do to make it a more attractive experience for our fans,” he said. ”We will look at that in that context, and the term will be consistent with what it will take to make sure that we continue to evolve that platform as well as the experience for our fans.”
That means streaming outlets, of course.
”We have accepted bids for digital partners,” Goodell said. ”We have very healthy competition. In fact, I would say it’s unprecedented competition from a number of digital partners.
”As I say, we put our focus on the broadcast package first. … We are not required to go coterminous with the broadcasts. We can do any length of deal that we get to an agreement on with that digital partner. As I mentioned earlier, we will be doing this in cooperation with our Fox partners.”