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Tanner Bibee is making history in the worst possible way — and almost none of it is his fault
Let’s say this plainly: Tanner Bibee is the first pitcher in Cleveland’s 125-year franchise history to go winless through his first 13 starts of a season. That is a genuinely staggering number. It is also, on closer inspection, a monument to bad timing, a shaky bullpen, and a lineup that keeps going quiet at the worst possible moments — not evidence that a promising young pitcher has fallen apart.
The strongest counterargument to that framing is the contract. Bibee signed a five-year, $48 million deal and is now sitting at 0-7 on the season. When you take that kind of money, the results are supposed to follow. Fair enough. But wins for starting pitchers in 2026 are about as reliable a performance metric as batting average on bunt singles. Catcher Austin Hedges said it plainly after Sunday’s game: wins and losses don’t mean anything for a starting pitcher. He’s right, and the underlying numbers back him up.
The game that broke the record — and how it broke him
Sunday against the Boston Red Sox was almost the day the drought ended. Bibee left after six innings with Cleveland up 4-3, having thrown 90 pitches, surrendering three runs on six hits, and punching out five. By any reasonable measure, he did his job. Then the bullpen entered the seventh inning and the whole thing caved in. According to ESPN’s reporting on the game, Boston scored six runs in that inning alone, turning a Guardians lead into a blowout. Final score: Red Sox 9, Guardians 4.
It was the fourth leadoff home run Bibee has allowed this season — Jarren Duran went deep on the fifth pitch of the game — which is a real concern and a legitimate area for improvement. But Bibee responded by retiring Boston in order in the sixth. He was in line for the win. He watched it disappear from the dugout.
General manager Chris Antonetti acknowledged the obvious: Cleveland hasn’t scored when Bibee pitches, even in starts where he’s been sharp. That’s organizational candor you don’t always hear, and it matters. The problem isn’t just isolated to Sunday.
The numbers tell a more complicated story
Before you write Bibee off entirely, consider where he came from. According to ESPN’s reporting, he went 22-12 with a 3.25 ERA in his first two major-league seasons and finished second in AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2023. He was mentioned alongside CC Sabathia and Shane Bieber as one of only three Cleveland pitchers since 2000 to win at least 10 games in each of his first two seasons. That’s a real pedigree.
Since signing the contract, the numbers have dipped — ESPN reports he’s been a .500-range pitcher over his subsequent starts with an ERA creeping above 4.00 — but the arrow isn’t pointing straight down. Manager Stephen Vogt noted improvement in Bibee’s changeup after a rough outing against Washington earlier in the week. The source article notes Bibee has logged six quality starts this season, which means he’s giving his team a legitimate chance to win on a consistent basis. The wins just aren’t coming.
It’s also worth noting the company Bibee now keeps in the record books. ESPN reports he became just the 12th Opening Day starter since 1976 to make at least 10 starts without earning a win before June, joining names like Kyle Freeland (2025), José Ureña (2018), and Carl Morton (1976). None of those careers ended because of a bad spring. Most of them bounced back.
The real issue hiding behind the headline
The win column is a distraction here. The real story in Cleveland is a bullpen that burned Bibee on Sunday and a team that has repeatedly failed to hit behind him when it counts. There’s also a secondary issue lurking in the weeds: Cleveland’s reportedly poor challenge rate under the Automated Ball-Strike system has already cost the team at least one momentum shift this season, and Sunday was a direct example. A disputed strike-three call on a full count with the bases loaded in the seventh opened the door to Boston’s six-run inning. These are systemic problems, not a Bibee problem.
At 0-7, Bibee is a fascinating and genuinely sad case study in how modern baseball can make a solid pitcher look like a disaster. He deserves scrutiny — the leadoff homers are a pattern, and at some point the ERA has to trend down for this analysis to hold — but the historic futility attached to his name right now reflects a team failing him as much as he is failing the team.
The drought will end. The more important question is whether Cleveland fixes the structural issues before it does.
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