Newest Shane Bieber update offers glimpse of hope for Guardians' veteran pitcher

Alright Cleveland, it's time to exhale. Kind of.

One day after announcing that Shane Bieber had experienced some soreness in his throwing arm after throwing a bullpen, the team released a promising update on Friday that adds a dose of optimism to the situation.

After meeting with Guardians team doctors and Dr. Keith Meister, the team announced that Bieber will be shut down from throwing for the next week before being re-examined to determine his next steps.

Although Bieber's still going to be shut down for a week, he's not going under the knife, which seemed like a possibility yesterday given the suddenness of the news and the fact that he was going to be consulting with the doctor who performed his surgery.

Newest Shane Bieber update offers glimpse of hope for veteran pitcher

It makes sense that Bieber (and the Guardians) would want to be as careful as possible during his rehab process given his history with arm injuries.

While every day and week he misses cut into the amount of time he'd be on the Guardians' MLB roster, it's better than him rushing it and suffering a serious injury that causes him to miss the entire year.

Ten starts from Bieber is better than a missed season.

Bieber also has the comfort that comes with his contract, as he has a $16 million player option for next year along with a $4 million buyout.

It'll be interesting to see how this injury will impact Bieber's rehab process (so long as he's able to return). He had made one rehab start in the Arizona Rookie League last week and was set to pitch for Double-A Akron prior to getting hurt.

The team was determined to keep him around their Cleveland affiliates; whether that's still the plan remains to be seen.

Bieber's one of the best pitchers in baseball when he's healthy, and Cleveland fans got another reminder of that last year when he tossed 12 scoreless innings prior to going under the knife for Tommy John surgery.

While bumps and soreness are a part of the process, any kind of Bieber-based setback is going to raise antennas all around Cleveland.

It also doesn't help that the Guardians' rotation has already suffered a huge blow this year when they lost Ben Lively to Tommy John surgery. While the Guardians rotation has pitched okay this year, they'd gladly welcome Bieber with open arms (as would almost every rotation in MLB).

He recorded five strikeouts in his 2 1/3 innings in Arizona, and his fastball sat around 94 miles per hour, which had Guardians fans everywhere dreaming about him doing that on the mound at Progressive Field.

We'll have to wait a week to see if that dream can become a reality this season.