{"id":764277,"date":"2026-07-29T05:18:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T05:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/764277\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T05:18:35","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T05:18:35","slug":"blue-jays-bieber-struggles-through-worst-outing-walks-6-in-two-thirds-of-an-inning-vs-nats-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/764277\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays’ Bieber struggles through ‘worst’ outing, walks 6 in two-thirds of an inning vs. Nats"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2013 Toronto pitcher Shane Bieber\u2019s start against the Washington Nationals was anything but a walk in the park.<\/p>\n

The former Cy Young Award winner issued walks to six of the nine batters he faced \u2014 including three with the bases loaded \u2014 before departing after two-thirds of an inning Tuesday night in the Blue Jays’ 8-6 loss<\/a>. In his previous 149 pitching appearances, the 31-year-old right-hander’s high for walks was five.<\/p>\n

According to Stathead\/Baseball Reference, Bieber is the 11th pitcher in major league history to walk at least six while recording two outs or less, and the first to do so since Florida\u2019s Ryan Dempster on Oct. 5, 2001, at Atlanta.<\/p>\n

Bieber said he had difficulty gripping the ball and struggled with his command as a result. Bieber didn’t walk anyone in his previous start Thursday, when he allowed one run in seven innings against Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to find a way to get through it, right, and I wasn’t able to do that tonight,\u201d Bieber said. \u201cUltimately, I follow up what was maybe my best start as a Blue Jay with what was definitely my worst.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bieber is the first Cy Young winner to have such an outing, although Hall of Famers Bob Feller and Christy Mathewson did, too. Bieber won the AL Cy Young in 2020.<\/p>\n

Bieber threw 42 pitches, with only 15 strikes. He is the second player this season to throw that many pitches with so few strikes. Kansas City\u2019s Eric Cerantola threw 14 strikes in a 42-pitch relief outing against Tampa Bay on June 30.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no excuses,\u201d Bieber said. \u201cI have to find a way to get out of that first inning. Dry my hands off and change shirts and eat up innings after that. That’s what I was trying to do and unfortunately I wasn’t able to. I don’t think I’ve ever had anything like that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Washington\u2019s James Wood led off the first with a walk, and Luis Garc\u00eda Jr. followed with a grounder to second. Dylan Crews then earned a free pass, and CJ Abrams followed with a well-placed infield single.<\/p>\n

The typically free-swinging Keibert Ruiz followed with a four-pitch walk that scored the first run, and Daylen Lile drew another walk that pushed in another run. Nasim Nu\u00f1ez hit a sacrifice fly before Jorbit Vivas loaded the bases again with the inning’s fifth walk, prompting a mound visit from Toronto pitching coach Pete Walker.<\/p>\n

Jacob Young then took six pitches — three balls and then two called strikes followed by a slider well outside the zone — to force in a fourth run. That prompted manager John Schneider to head to the mound and end Bieber\u2019s outing.<\/p>\n

It was Bieber’s seventh start of the season after missing almost three months with elbow inflammation. He was limited to a combined nine regular-season starts over the previous two seasons after undergoing Tommy John surgery in April 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cKind of just the last thing we thought was going to happen with him right there,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cWhen you get up to that pitch count in the first, with him, with his history and everything, just didn’t want to push it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reliever Brendon Little got Wood to ground out to end the inning.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2013 Toronto pitcher Shane Bieber\u2019s start against the Washington Nationals was anything but a walk in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":764278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2398],"tags":[5,26345,1208,497,566,58614,6287,565,3964,1825,2101,2098,4,11193,415,48366,35185,1271,185,414,71,4222],"class_list":["post-764277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-washington-nationals","tag-baseball","tag-bob-feller","tag-brendon-little","tag-cj-abrams","tag-dylan-crews","tag-eric-cerantola","tag-jacob-young","tag-james-wood","tag-john-schneider","tag-jorbit-vivas","tag-keibert-ruiz","tag-luis-garcia","tag-mlb","tag-nasim-nunez","tag-nationals","tag-pete-walker","tag-ryan-dempster","tag-shane-bieber","tag-sports","tag-washington","tag-washington-nationals","tag-washingtonnationals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117001578335467909","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}