Shane Bieber pitches Guardians to close win over Cards

Shane Bieber pitched 6 2/3 innings of two earned runs and a Cleveland Guardians He won 4-3 over the visiting team St. Louis Cardinals on Friday

Bieber (4-3) had five hits and four walks while striking out two. Emmanuel Clase entered the ninth, but came away with his major league-leading 17th save.

Cleveland took a 4-0 lead thanks to Matthew Liberatore’s fifth inning that included an RBI single by Steven Kwan and a three-run double by Amed Rosario.

THE cardinals made things interesting by the end. Lars Nootbar drove an RBI double over Kwan’s head in the ninth to left field to cut the Guardians‘ leads to one

Clase needed 32 pitches to get through the frame. But he struck out 2022 National League MVP Paul Goldschmidt on a check and then got Nolan Gorman — the NL’s top slugging percentage (.597) — to look at a triple.

Bieber traded zeroes with Liberatore until the fifth when the Guardians he put together a big rally on a single, getting the first five men on base and scoring four of them.

Bieber hit Andres Gimenez to start the inning, and Cleveland loaded the bases on soft singles by Myles Straw and Mike Zunino. Kwan led off with a single to short left field in Gimenez.

Amed Rosario then cleared the bases with a double into the left field corner and Guardians It was a 4-0 lead

THE cardinalsPlaying their 15th game in 19 games in as many days, they split the lead, scoring single runs in the sixth and seventh on sacrifice flies by Nolan Arenado and Alec Burleson.

The seventh got even more interesting as Bieber walked the final two batters he faced before reliever Trevor Stephan walked Goldschmidt to load the bases. However, Stephan got Nolan Gorman to pop out to third baseman Jose Ramirez in foul territory.

Gorman went 0-4, ending his 15-game hitting streak.

Kwan also helped keep a potential run off the board when Arenado made a spectacular catch over the left field wall in the eighth.

— Field Level Media