At long last, Shane Bieber appears ready to make his Toronto Blue Jays debut.
The former Cy Young winner will start Friday night for Toronto in Miami against the Marlins, The Athletic's Mitch Bannon first reported.
Bieber last pitched on April 2, 2024 for the Cleveland Guardians — his second start of that season. He threw 12 total innings in 2024 without allowing a run before Tommy John surgery derailed the next year-and-a-half of his career. The Blue Jays acquired him from Cleveland at this year's trade deadline as he was continuing his rehab.
Between the Cleveland and Toronto systems. Bieber has appeared in seven minor league games this year as he works his way back, and the results have been stellar. Overall, he has thrown 29 innings, striking out 37 batters and building a 1.86 ERA. Since the trade, he has made three starts at Triple-A Buffalo where he has a 2.04 ERA.
“You can allow yourself to get pretty excited when you’re adding a guy of that caliber,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said, per Keegan Matheson of MLB.com. “Once you get to know him, he’s the definition of a pro. He fits right in with the guys that we have already in our rotation. He’s really, really smart. He understands what he’s good at and what he’s trying to do. He’s confident right now.”
He will join a Toronto team that is in the driver's seat in the American League East, leading the Boston Red Sox by five games and the New York Yankees by 5.5. With Bieber in tow, they now have the potential to go to a six-man rotation down the stretch, which may benefit an older Toronto pitching staff that includes Kevin Gausman (34), Chris Basssit (36) and Max Scherzer (40).
“We’ve been saying this whole time that up until that day — up until Friday — we’re just basing everything on workload and health,” Schneider added, “to see how deep each starter goes in this series. We’ll see how his outing unfolds on Friday, too, and go from there. We have plans in place, but it’s still going to be fluid until Wednesday afternoon.”
