The Guardians stuck with their trademark willingness to take a swing, even with the season tightening around them, and it cost them in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series.
Cleveland gave Parker Messick a different catcher for the first time Sunday night, pairing the rookie pitcher with Patrick Bailey instead of Austin Hedges. The move came with the Guardians in a critical spot, and it didn’t pay off in a 3-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays at Progressive Field.
The defeat pushed Cleveland behind 3-2 in the best-of-seven series heading back to St. Petersburg, Florida, for Game 6 at 8:08 p.m.
Monday, Oct. 19, at Tropicana Field.
Messick was not the only reason the Guardians lost. The offense was quiet again, managing just one run and five hits, which was their fewest in a game this ALCS.
Still, Messick’s night changed the shape of the game fast. He gave up two runs and lasted only two innings, forcing Tim Herrin into the game to start the third and Shawn Armstrong into the game in the fourth after Tampa Bay had already built a 3-0 lead.
The matchup on paper was no slouch. Messick and Rays starter Drew Rasmussen were both 2026 MLB All-Stars, but only one of them looked the part. Rasmussen worked seven innings, allowing one run, four hits and one walk while striking out six.
Messick’s line was far rougher: five hits, two walks, three strikeouts and 57 pitches, 34 of them strikes. He needed 31 pitches just to get through the first inning, and only 17 were strikes. It was his shortest outing in the majors.
The catcher decision was the part that invited the second-guessing. Before Messick’s Game 2 start in Florida on Oct. 13, manager Stephen Vogt said he “never really believed” in the idea of a personal catcher. Even so, he acknowledged that Messick and Hedges had built natural chemistry and that the Guardians had no desire to disrupt what had worked, even after Bailey arrived in the trade with the San Francisco Giants on May 9.
“When somebody's having a season like that, you don't necessarily want to disrupt that,” Vogt said of Messick operating with Hedges as his catcher.
Vogt also admitted Hedges’ experience with Messick could help him pick up the finer points of the pitcher’s game better than Bailey would. In Game 2, Vogt said “it didn't feel right” to start Bailey with Messick, and Cleveland still lost that night, 3-1, despite Messick allowing three runs, none earned, in five innings.
Five days later, though, Vogt changed course. He explained the call before Game 5 by pointing to Bailey’s bat.
“With the way Patty is swinging the bat, we just wanted to keep his bat in the lineup,” Vogt said before Game 5. “Obviously, there is some risk.
There's some concern with Patty never [having] caught Parker. But you know what?
If I'm going to trust two human beings to go out and navigate a game, it's Parker and Patty.”
Bailey entered the night hitting .333 this postseason with nine hits, two home runs, three RBIs, two walks and a .935 OPS. He went 0-for-3 in Game 5 and grounded into a double play to end the seventh inning. Hedges, meanwhile, has only three postseason at-bats and is 0-for-3 with a walk.
Messick did not place any blame on Bailey after the loss.
"Patrick's great. Hedgey's great.
We're fortunate enough to have two great catchers," Messick said. "Patty did a great job with game plan.
[It's] purely on me."
Cleveland has spent this postseason showing a willingness to experiment. Last year in an AL Wild Card Series game against the Detroit Tigers, the Guardians turned to Chase DeLauter for his MLB debut and started him in center field, a position he had not played in more than a year after returning from a right hamate fracture.
DeLauter lost a fly ball in the sun for an error, but later made up for it with an outfield assist to third base. The Guardians won that game 6-1 before eventually losing the series 2-1.
That sort of approach lines up with Vogt’s thinking, even if Sunday’s result made it look a lot riskier in hindsight.
“It's about trusting your people,” Vogt said a few hours ahead of Game 5. “It's about knowing your people.
I work really hard to get to know these guys. I work really hard to get to know who they are and what they're capable of.
And what's the point of this if you're not willing to take a risk or take a chance? If you play it safe all the time, you're going to go home early.
“I don't think this is a huge risk putting Patty back there. He's one of the best catchers on the planet, and Parker's one of the best pitchers on the planet. So, you go trust two elite athletes to go do it.”
It’s an understandable philosophy. It just didn’t work out for the Guardians when the margin was razor thin.
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