CLEVELAND -- There was a palpable buzz from a sellout crowd at Progressive Field hours before Game 1 of the ALDS, and that energy fueled Guardians starter Parker Messick once he took the mound on Saturday afternoon.
“It was incredible,” Messick said. “Everyone showed up. It was a fun environment. I felt great coming out of the gate. I felt really good. The stuff was good.”
Messick’s introduction to playoff baseball began in dominant fashion against the White Sox. After striking out six of his first 11 batters faced, the 25-year-old rookie found himself on the cusp of history in his postseason debut. Jaret Wright holds the Cleveland rookie record with seven strikeouts in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series.
The bid for history ultimately fizzled for Messick, who did not strike out a batter beyond the third inning during a 3-0 loss that gave the White Sox a 1-0 lead in the series.
After the Guardians stranded the bases loaded in the bottom of the third, Messick began the fourth by allowing a leadoff single to Miguel Vargas. That set the stage for White Sox rookie sensation Munetaka Murakami, who ambushed a first-pitch sinker up and in from Messick for a Statcast-projected 440-foot moonshot that nearly cleared the section of seats in right field, giving Chicago a 2-0 lead.
How Murakami even made contact on that pitch in the first place, let alone swatted it out, was a marvel.
“It was on the inner-half,” Messick said. “Pretty sure it was on the black of the plate. He just got to it. I think he was sitting on it. Just put a good swing on a pitch.”
Those were the only two runs Messick allowed. Outside of that, his outing looked a lot like most of his starts over an impressive campaign that will surely garner some Rookie of the Year votes after he posted a 2.56 ERA that goes down as the seventh-lowest ERA by a qualified rookie pitcher since 1969. His fastball averaged 96.9 mph -- nearly two mph above his season average -- and he generated a whopping 14 whiffs, nine of which came on his filthy changeup.
“He was awesome,” Guardians catcher Austin Hedges said. “I thought he was really good. Murakami took an unbelievable swing at a good pitch. Other than that, I thought he was excellent.”
The one downside to Messick’s early strikeout flurry was a rapidly rising pitch count. He sat at 78 pitches through four innings and exited the game in the fifth inning with one out and 87 pitches.
“They made him work,” said Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt. “They kind of got his pitch count up. Outside of the one mistake, which wasn't a bad pitch -- that was a good hit by Murakami -- I thought Parker threw the ball excellently. He did his job and kept us in the game.”
If you are looking for what went wrong for Messick in this one, you could point to the nearly 20-minute sequence in which the Guardians loaded the bases in the third on three consecutive walks that kept him waiting on the bench. But neither Messick nor Hedges believed that was a factor.
“I just wish we'd scored that [third] inning,” Hedges said. “But it had nothing to do with [giving up a homer]. He executed his pitch. I thought it was a good sinker executed, and it was just a better swing.”
Ultimately, Saturday’s loss fell on the Guardians' offense, which twice failed to capitalize in bases-loaded spots and left seven runners on base in total. As for Messick, he showed that if given the opportunity to pitch again in this best-of-five series, Cleveland has a good shot at winning that game with a better showing from the hitters.
“We just weren't able to get anything going,” Vogt said. “But Parker was outstanding.”