{"id":835854,"date":"2026-06-01T02:21:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T02:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/835854\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T02:21:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T02:21:16","slug":"tanner-bibee-sets-franchise-record-for-longest-season-opening-win-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/835854\/","title":{"rendered":"Tanner Bibee Sets Franchise Record For Longest Season-Opening Win Drought"},"content":{"rendered":"

For one inning, it appeared as if all the breaks were going the way of Cleveland starting pitcher Tanner Bibee<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Despite giving up a leadoff homer for the second straight game, the right-hander left with a lead for the first time in 13 starts this season and finally got run support as the Guardians<\/a> led the Boston Red Sox<\/a> 4-3 going into the seventh inning.<\/p>\n

Instead, Bibee had a front row seat as the bullpen had one of its worst innings of the year as Boston rallied for a 9-4 win.<\/p>\n

That put Bibee at the top of a couple of lists no starting pitcher wants to join.<\/p>\n

Boston\u2019s six runs in the seventh inning en route to a 9-4 victory made Bibee the 12th opening day starter since 1976 to make at least 10 starts and not earn a win before June, according to Sportradar.<\/p>\n

He has the most starts without a win before June and is the fourth with at least 12. The others were Colorado\u2019s Kyle Freeland (2025), Miami\u2019s Jos\u00e9 Ure\u00f1a (2018) and Atlanta\u2019s Carl Morton (1976).<\/p>\n

Bibee is also the first pitcher in Cleveland\u2019s 125-year franchise history to go winless in his first 13 starts.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve said this in the past. I don\u2019t have any control over it. All I can do is go out there, try to throw up some zeros and whatever happens, happens,” said Bibee, who is 0-7.<\/p>\n

Bibee’s seven losses are tied for the second most among among the 12 opening day starters. His 4.57 is the fourth lowest.<\/p>\n

“Wins and losses don\u2019t matter for starting pitchers. It\u2019s not a stat that means anything. So I know he\u2019s not worried about it and we\u2019re definitely not worried about it,” catcher Austin Hedges<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

Bibee bounced back after Jarren Duran<\/a> connected on the fifth pitch of the game and drove it into the right-field stands, the fourth time he gave up a leadoff homer this season. He allowed only one hit in the second through fourth innings before the Red Sox loaded the bases with one out in the fifth. Mickey Gasper<\/a> tied it at 2-all with a sacrifice fly to drive in Marcelo Mayer<\/a> and Wilyer Abreu\u2019s RBI single gave Boston a 3-2 lead.<\/p>\n

However, the Guardians rallied.<\/p>\n

Cleveland scored twice in the bottom of the fifth on Jose Ramirez’s<\/a> RBI double after Boston left fielder Masataka Yoshida<\/a> lost track of the fly ball in the sun. Chase DeLauter\u2019s single drove in Ram\u00edrez. They loaded the bases with two outs when Stuart Fairchild<\/a> struck out and unsuccessfully challenged the called third strike.<\/p>\n

That left the Guardians without a challenge for the rest of the game, which would come back to haunt them.<\/p>\n

Bibee retired the Red Sox in order in the sixth. He threw 90 pitches, including 62 strikes, and allowed three runs and six hits with five strikeouts and one walk.<\/p>\n

The Guardians bullpen couldn\u2019t hold the lead. Tim Herrin<\/a> seemed poised to escape a bases-loaded jam with a fastball on the outer corner to Abreu on a full count, but home plate umpire Austin Jones called it a ball, allowing Connor Wong<\/a> to score and tie it at 4-all.<\/p>\n

The inning unraveled as Boston had three straight hits and added five more runs to take control of the game.<\/p>\n

Cleveland has the third-worst challenge rate on ABS at 44.4%. The league average is 52.7%.<\/p>\n

“I mean, it\u2019s frustrating, but that\u2019s on us. We shouldn\u2019t have lost our challenges. It\u2019s what they\u2019re there for, and we\u2019ve got to take accountability and be better at it,” Hedges said.<\/p>\n

Bibee was a fifth-round pick by Cleveland in the 2021 amateur draft. He went 22-12 with a 3.25 ERA in his first two seasons in the majors and was second in AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2023. He was also the third Cleveland pitcher since 2000 with at least 10 wins in each of his first two seasons in the big leagues. Hall of Famer CC Sabathia (2001-02) and Shane Bieber (2018-19) are the others.<\/p>\n

However, Bibee is 12-18 with a 4.33 ERA in 43 starts since signing a five-year, $48 million contract during spring training last year.<\/p>\n

“We haven\u2019t scored a lot of runs when Tanner\u2019s been on the mound, even in some of the starts in which he\u2019s pitched exceptionally well,” general manager Chris Antonetti said. “I think as we look forward, we\u2019ll start to see more of those outings in which he\u2019s pitching more effectively than maybe some of those other hiccup.”<\/p>\n

Bibee remains confident he can turn his season around. Manager Stephen Vogt said Bibee\u2019s changeup showed improvement after he allowed seven runs in three innings on Monday against Washington.<\/p>\n

He has six quality starts this season with Sunday’s being the fourth in his past five games.<\/p>\n

“You want to win games, but I feel like it\u2019s important to know pitching; you\u2019re playing a completely different sport than the other nine people in the field. So it\u2019s just figuring out what the kind of self-evaluation of it,” Bibee said.<\/p>\n

Reporting by the Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For one inning, it appeared as if all the breaks were going the way of Cleveland starting pitcher…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":835855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[328800,1281,1282,109457,25268,16751,1884,90080,38460,242802,1266,62,271739,16756,342646,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-835854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-austin-hedges","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-connor-wong","tag-jarren-duran","tag-jose-ramirez","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-marcelo-mayer","tag-masataka-yoshida","tag-mickey-gasper","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-stuart-fairchild","tag-tanner-bibee","tag-tim-herrin","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116672468528913883","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=835854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}