New York Yankees vs. Cleveland Guardians: Clarke Schmidt vs. Shane Bieber

The Yankees come into tonight’s series finale against the Guardians having righted the ship with a win last night after arguably the most demoralizing loss of the season on Monday. The comeback win ended a four-game losing streak, but that won’t be enough to vault them out of last place. Winning tonight’s rubber game would more effectively put that skid in the rearview mirror before the offday tomorrow.

Due to a few different factors, we don’t have time for a standard rundown of the two starting pitchers, but here’s what my colleague Peter wrote on Monday in the series preview regarding this matchup of Shane Bieber vs. Clarke Schmidt:

It’s probably safe to say at this point that Clarke Schmidt is not a viable starting pitcher, but the Yankees will continue to call on him while their preferred starters work back from injury. He’s been a hard contact magnet since his debut in 2020, his 46.8 percent hard-hit rate tied for seventh-highest among starters with at least 100 balls in play over that span and the highest of any Yankees starter in the Statcast Era. Opposing lineups have scored at least three runs off Schmidt in each of his six starts, which isn’t surprising considering he finds himself in the bottom five percent of the league in exit velocity, hard-hit rate, and barrel rate. In six starts, the beleaguered Yankees pitchers is 0-3 with a 6.84 ERA (64 ERA+), 5.52 FIP, and 32 strikeouts in 25 innings.

As if all that wasn’t bad enough, he’ll have to square off against Cleveland’s ace in the series finale. The Yankees almost eked out a win against Bieber the first time they faced him this year, but that doesn’t tell the whole story of his performance. He gave up two quick runs in the first but then settled for six more scoreless innings allowing just two further hits, and figures to face a far less threatening lineup on Wednesday night. In six starts, Bieber is 2-1 with a 3.11 ERA (138 ERA+), 3.63 FIP, and 26 strikeouts in 37.2 innings.

As for the New York starting nine, Jose Trevino gets the day off as Kyle Higashioka will catch and bat eighth. After last night’s strong showing and go-ahead homer in the seventh, Willie Calhoun slots into the fifth spot. Isiah Kiner-Falefa will patrol left field, and Jake Bauers will make his return and ideally be able to take an actual at-bat this time.

Let’s go Yankees.

How to watch

Location: Yankee Stadium — Bronx, NY

First pitch: 7:05 pm ET

TV broadcast: Amazon Prime Video, Bally Sports Great Lakes, MLB Network (out-of-market only)

Radio broadcast: WFAN 660/101.9, WADO 1280 (NYY) / WMMS 100.7, WTAM 1100, Guardians Radio Network (CLE)

Online stream: MLB.tv

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