Tanner Bibee’s June may be the clearest sign yet that his season is turning in the right direction.
The Guardians right-hander has had his rough patches this year, including outings where he gave up seven and eight runs. His 2-9 record has made it easy for some fans to jump to conclusions. But the bigger picture looks much steadier than that record suggests.
Bibee owns a 3.69 ERA across 102 innings this season, which lines up closely with his career 3.63 mark. That’s not the profile of a pitcher collapsing under the weight of a bad year. It’s the profile of a starter who has mixed in some ugly nights with a lot of solid work.
June was the month that really pulled his season together. Guardians insider Tim Stebbins summed it up after another strong outing on Wednesday: “(Bibee) finishes June with a 1.89 ERA in 33 1/3 innings over five starts,”
Bibee goes 7 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 K, 1 HR
He finishes June with a 1.89 ERA in 33 1/3 innings over five starts.
- Tim Stebbins (@tim_stebbins) July 1, 2026
On Wednesday, Bibee worked seven innings, allowing three runs with two earned, while striking out two and walking none. It was the kind of outing that fit right into a month in which he helped carry Cleveland’s rotation, even when the offense didn’t always back him up.
The fastball will always leave him open to the home run. He has given up 1.5 homers per nine innings, a career-high.
Still, his ability to limit damage has kept him valuable. He gives the Guardians length, avoids walks, and can pitch out of trouble when the inning starts to tilt.
He may not be the ace he looked like as a rookie in 2023, but he remains exactly the kind of starter teams want taking the ball every fifth day. Bibee can frustrate hitters, survive the inevitable loud contact, and still keep his club in the game.
There’s also precedent for this kind of run. Last September, he was dominant, posting a 1.30 ERA in the final month of the 2025 season. That’s the version of Bibee Cleveland can lean on when he’s locked in.
The overall package is still strong. For the Guardians, Bibee remains a young, established pitching piece on a very affordable contract.
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In a recent win over the Rangers, Hedges added his second home run of the season and helped drive in a run earlier in the game, another sign that the bat is no longer just a bonus for the Guardians. His progress has come from steady work on his swing and approach, and while the larger story around his offense still feels like it is unfolding, the early return is enough to make Cleveland take a second look at a player it has long trusted for very different reasons. [Read more 🡒]
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Ralphy Velazquez has surged this season all the way to Columbus and now sits atop MLB Pipelines first-base rankings, while Cooper Ingle has turned a strong run in the International League into a place on the big-league roster. Together, they give the Guardians more evidence that the next wave is arriving, even if the bigger question is how soon that pipeline starts feeding the major-league club in a more permanent way. [Read more 🡒]