Tanner Bibee is on a heated competitive streak. The Guardians in the ALDS are counting on this

CLEVELAND – The reaction is always the same whether it's the fifth or eighth inning. Tanner Bibee stops, puts his glove on his hip and tilts his head as he looks at his manager.

Sometimes he looks at the sky. He sometimes covers his mouth with his glove to absorb the four-letter words he inevitably spits out.

This is not a new scene. In high school, his coach emerged from the dugout and Bibee thought: This guy again? The nerve.

Bibee turned his back on the shelter and looked at the clouds.

“He hated it so much,” his high school coach said.

That coach, by the way, was Bibee's father, Scott, who laughs as he reflects on the interactions. He understands his son's way of thinking.

“He knew what I was going to say,” Scott said, “but he just didn’t want to hear it. That way he’s competitive.”

Bibee, of course, claims that he inherited this from his father.

Tanner was able to serve before he could walk. At least that's how Scott has described it since he handed his youngest son a baseball at age 1 and the toddler's first instinct was to throw it back to his father.

Since then, Bibee wanted the ball in his hands. He will be in the first game of the ALDS against the Detroit Tigers on Saturday, the starting player selected to accompany the Guardians on their journey through October.

Tanner Bibee is ready to take the mound in October. #ForTheCountry pic.twitter.com/W9ikTO1n0N

— Bally Sports Cleveland (@BallySportsCLE) September 22, 2024

It may seem like a quick and unlikely rise to the top of a World Series contender's rotation, but his competitive drive has driven him to this point. Bibee admits he had an unfulfilling college career at Cal State Fullerton during a few rare seasons in which the Titans did not qualify for the NCAA Tournament. Cleveland catcher David Fry lightheartedly described Bibee as “a kid in Fullerton who throws 90 mile-per-hour sinkers. “He's no good and now he's one of the best aces in baseball.”

The Guardians identified several features they coveted, including Bibee's makeup. They prioritize players who welcome lessons and show a desire to improve, and Bibee met those criteria. A year and a half after Cleveland drafted him in the fifth round in 2021, Bibee was considered one of the top 100 prospects in the sport. A year and a half later, he is now the Guardians' No. 1 starter.

He reworked his arsenal and learned to throw harder. He had a stellar first season in the majors, finishing second in AL Rookie of the Year voting. He got through a second season in which he had to learn to harness his emotions and frustrations as hitters became more comfortable with him.

“Earlier in the year he allowed a couple home runs early and you could see the competition coming out,” catcher Austin Hedges said. “Now he might give up a home run in the first and just chew his gum on the mound like nothing happened. You are allowed to score a run. These pitchers are not committed to playing nine scoreless games every time. Teams will score runs. It's baseball. And he responded to it.

“He’s a real (No.) 1 in this league and you react like that.”

When he was three years old, Bibee lost at a video game and threw the remote control at the television, breaking the screen.

“I hate losing,” he said. “I really hate it. I want to be the best at everything I do.”

This also includes “MLB The Show”. He and his father have been playing the video game since its first release in 2006. For two decades, Bibee dominated his father.

Nine years ago, Scott suggested sticking a whiteboard on the wall and tracking the results. Tired of taking hit after hit, he changed the settings so that Tanner's hitters hit back and forth and missed and his fielders camped under a foul fly ball and dropped it. The apoplectic Tanner couldn't understand why his virtual players were stalling so often.

“Anything it hit would be a missile,” Tanner said. “I’m like, ‘I don’t know what to do. What am I doing?'”

Scott kept up the charade for a few weeks before finally coming clean. And for the first time, the 16-year-old dropped F-bombs on his father. His mother, Shellie, demanded that her husband indulge in a certain amount of shame. Around his neck, Scott wore a sign that read, “I cheated on 'The Show' to beat my 16-year-old son.”

Bibee then resumed his consistent destruction of his father, a detail he stressed he wanted to share with the public.

“It’s definitely the competitive nature of it,” Scott said. “He knows his skills.”

His teammates know that too.

“His competitiveness is unmatched,” Hedges said.

Shane Bieber suffered an elbow injury in early April. Triston McKenzie and Logan Allen left after struggling in the majors against Triple-A Columbus. Gavin Williams was out for three months.

Bibee was the constant in Cleveland's rotation – he posted a 3.47 ERA with 187 strikeouts in 31 starts – and he waited for the opportunity to play in a high-stakes game. He refused to watch baseball after the Guardians' dismal 2023 season ended.

Scott and Shellie will be in the stands at Progressive Field on Saturday along with Bibee's two brothers, his grandma and his aunt. Scott prefers to watch his son pitch in person so he can follow his body language and understand what he's thinking. The more he can observe, the less stressed he is. When the television broadcast pans to the batter or a fielder instead of following Bibee off the field after a third out, or when Scott has to rely on a radio broadcast to depict the scene, he is consumed by helplessness. At the park, he feels like he's in step with his favorite pitcher.

“I can see what’s going on,” Scott said. “I can feel it along with him.”

And Bibee doesn't exactly hide his feelings.

In a mid-May start against the Minnesota Twins, Carlos Santana managed a pair of lineouts against Bibee. In the seventh inning, he hit base with the tying and go-ahead runs. Before Guardians manager Stephen Vogt could leave the dugout to call for a substitute, substitute coach Craig Albernaz said to Vogt: “What if you challenged him?”

Vogt went to the mound, where Bibee was ready to ask him to stay in the game.

Then Vogt told him, “You’re not leaving this hill.” Bibee was stunned. “You’re going to cross out that (expletive).”

And he did.

Vogt said it was a strategy to build trust between pitcher and manager, a way for Bibee to prove he “can be a guy for us.”

For once, Bibee didn't have to curse into his glove or stare at the sky. A few months later, there is no one the Guardians believe in more to take the mound and start their first playoff game.

“This is where you can start to make a name for yourself,” Hedges said, “a well-known name on a good team. “I think he will.”

(Photo by Tanner Bibee: Frank Jansky / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)