Indians: Shane Bieber ties the iconic pitcher Nolan Ryan in a rare category

The Indians struggled against the Reds over the weekend, with another costly error condemning a late-inning win that never was. Thank goodness for Shane Bieber. Bieber went eight innings on Sunday, with six hits given up, two walks, and three earned runs. The big stat though? Another 10+ strikeout game, this time with 13 strikeouts. For historical context, he and arguably one of (if not the) greatest pitcher of all time, Nolan Ryan, are the only two men in the history of the majors to record that many strikeouts through the first four starts of a season.

On the season, Bieber is 2-1, with 48 strikeouts, and a 2.45 ERA. This is coming off of back-to-back seasons of dominance as the Indians young ace. The soon-to-be 26-year-old is doing incredible things.

In his 2019 breakout season, he averaged 1.209 strikeouts per inning. In 2020, his Cy Young-winning year, he averaged 1.58. Currently, through four starts in 2021, Bieber has averaged 1.649. He had 259 total strikeouts in 2019. Had he pitched the same number of innings in 2020 as he did in 2019, Bieber would’ve been on pace for 338 strikeouts.

In 2021, he’s currently on pace for 353 strikeouts. That’s about what Ryan was averaging in his heyday with the then-named California Angels. Now, the most strikeouts in a season is 513 by Matt Kilroy in 1886. He went 29-34 as a rookie.

Baseball was weird back then.

Bieber though for modern pitchers may be the best the game has seen in some time. It isn’t just his ability to generate strikeouts that is impressive, it’s his ability to work out of jams and keep guys off of the bases. In 2019, Dakota Johnson gave up the most walks in baseball with 86. For comparison, Bieber had just 40.

Mike Leake led the majors with 227 hits that year, while Bieber only gave up 186. Justin Verlander, who stole Bieber’s Cy Young award, had 137 and led the majors for the least hits in given up in nine innings of baseball.

All of this to say that Bieber is on his way to being an all-time great.