Cleveland\u2019s 4-2 victory over the Baltimore Orioles<\/a> on Thursday night.<\/p>\nLeody Taveras led off the ninth with a grounder that just eluded diving second baseman Juan Brito and went into right field for a single to break up Messick\u2019s no-hit bid.<\/p>\n
Cleveland still has the longest current gap between no-hitters of any major league franchise. The team\u2019s most recent one was Len Barker\u2019s perfect game on May 15, 1981, against the Toronto Blue Jays.<\/p>\n
Up to that point, Messick had faced only one batter over the minimum and silenced a Baltimore lineup that came into the game third in the American League in on-base percentage (.334).<\/p>\n
Blaze Alexander followed with a line-drive single to center that ended Messick\u2019s night. The 25-year-old Messick was removed to a standing ovation from the crowd of 14,748.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was very special what we got to watch tonight. That\u2019s an unbelievably talented lineup that he took a no-hitter into the ninth against and just continued to attack,\u201d Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. \u201cHe and (catcher Austin) Hedges were magnificent with their sequencing. With that arsenal, that was a beautiful game.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was the first time in 11 career starts that Messick went more than seven innings. He was the 54th overall pick in the 2022 amateur draft out of Florida State and made his big league debut last year.<\/p>\n
Messick threw 112 pitches, 78 for strikes. The 69.6% strike rate was the third-highest of his career. He walked two and equaled a career best with nine strikeouts. He was charged with two runs in eight-plus innings.<\/p>\n
Messick got ahead of hitters early with 21 first-pitch strikes to the 27 batters he faced. The 18 swings and misses also tied a career high.<\/p>\n
Out of Messick\u2019s six-pitch repertoire, the most effective was the changeup. He threw it 29 times and got 22 strikes, including nine whiffs. His most-used pitch was his four-seam fastball, which he threw 43 times.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know they were looking for it. It\u2019s just, the bottom falls out of it when you\u2019ve got late movement like that, especially when you\u2019ve set it up with other pitches, the heaters and the curveballs and cutters \u2014 you have to take an outlier swing to it,\u201d Hedges said of the changeup. \u201cYou could tell they were trying to, but it\u2019s just that good of a pitch.\u201d <\/p>\n
The sinker was Messick\u2019s third-most frequent pitch in his first three starts this season, but he threw it only twice against the Orioles.<\/p>\n
Hedges said he had the feeling it might be a special night when center fielder Steven Kwan caught Taylor Ward\u2019s deep flyball at the wall to end the third inning. Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00edrez \u2014 who had a two-run homer in the first \u2014 made a nice stop on a grounder by Coby Mayo deep in the hole at third to end the fifth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crowd got pretty loud and that\u2019s an awesome feeling when everybody gets into it. I was really trying to lock in every pitch,\u201d Messick said. \u201cPretty much about the sixth inning on, I prayed between pretty much every inning and I just was telling myself to execute.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baltimore averted a shutout when Gunnar Henderson\u2019s sacrifice fly against closer Cade Smith drove in Taveras. Pete Alonso hit an RBI double before Smith retired the final two batters with runners at second and third for his fourth save.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe boys were into it the whole game. Once Leody got that hit, I equate it to a sniper in the NBA, where it only takes one to go in for everything to change,\u201d said Orioles first-year manager Craig Albernaz, who was Cleveland\u2019s bench coach in 2024 and associate manager last season. \u201cMessick was on. He had all his pitches dialed in the strike zone. He did a great job changing speeds in all counts, (getting) weak contact. He was on tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was the fourth time since Barker\u2019s gem that a single Cleveland pitcher carried a no-hitter into the ninth. John Farrell went eight innings on May 4, 1989, against Kansas City before Kevin Seitzer broke it up with a single after Willie Wilson reached on an error.<\/p>\n
Carlos Carrasco went 8 2\/3 innings against Tampa Bay on July 1, 2015, and Gavin Williams had a no-hitter for 8 1\/3 innings last season on Aug. 6 against the New York Mets.<\/p>\n
Carrasco came within one strike of a no-hitter when Rays left fielder Joey Butler lined a slider on an 0-2 count that just eluded the glove of leaping Cleveland second baseman Jason Kipnis.<\/p>\n
Juan Soto broke up Williams\u2019 no-hit bid with a home run to center.<\/p>\n
Messick is one of five American League pitchers with at least three wins. He improved to 3-0 this season and is third in the AL with a 1.05 ERA.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean it (stinks), but it is baseball. I\u2019ll have plenty more years to pitch a baseball game, so it might happen again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND (AP) \u2014 Rookie left-hander Parker Messick came within three outs of ending Cleveland\u2019s 45-year drought without a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[47,5,30643,539,2224,135,51,2565,583,51332,2078,538,916,7327,85801,85812,865,23,134,50609,45896,2170,4771,1212,4,256,61,862,1944,74,185,860,2081,5694,70,19792],"class_list":{"0":"post-677438","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-guardians","8":"tag-baltimore-orioles","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-blaze-alexander","11":"tag-cade-smith","12":"tag-carlos-carrasco","13":"tag-cleveland","14":"tag-cleveland-guardians","15":"tag-clevelandguardians","16":"tag-coby-mayo","17":"tag-craig-albernaz","18":"tag-gavin-williams","19":"tag-guardians","20":"tag-gunnar-henderson","21":"tag-jason-kipnis","22":"tag-joey-butler","23":"tag-john-farrell","24":"tag-jose-ramirez","25":"tag-juan-brito","26":"tag-juan-soto","27":"tag-kevin-seitzer","28":"tag-len-barker","29":"tag-leody-taveras","30":"tag-maryland","31":"tag-md-state-wire","32":"tag-mlb","33":"tag-mlb-baseball","34":"tag-new-york-mets","35":"tag-oh-state-wire","36":"tag-ohio","37":"tag-pete-alonso","38":"tag-sports","39":"tag-stephen-vogt","40":"tag-steven-kwan","41":"tag-taylor-ward","42":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","43":"tag-willie-wilson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}