Parker Messick’s first trip back to Florida as a major league All-Star comes with a pretty sharp backdrop: the Cleveland Guardians rookie is set to start Friday night against the Miami Marlins in his home state.
Messick has been one of Cleveland’s best finds in years. The left-hander from Plant City, Fla., was taken in the second round of the 2022 MLB Draft out of Florida State, and he’s already built an impressive early résumé.
Including his limited 2025 work after debuting, he is 10-6 with a 2.78 ERA and a 3.87 strikeout-per-walk ratio in his first 25 major league starts. This season alone, he’s 7-5 with a 2.80 ERA.
Cleveland has gone 10-8 in his starts this year, even if the recent results around him have been a little rougher. The Guardians have dropped their last three and six of their last seven games when Messick has taken the ball. He has never faced Miami before.
Messick said the moment still feels hard to process.
"I was in high school, going over to my buddy's house watching the Home Run Derby and watching the All-Star Game," Messick said. "I feel like that was yesterday.
I felt like that was so far away. Now that it's here, just thank the Lord that I'm in this position."
He’s one of three Cleveland All-Stars. The others are closer Cade Smith and rookie second baseman Travis Bazzana.
Smith’s path has been a little unusual, but it’s turned into another smart Cleveland move. The Canadian was drafted by the Minnesota Twins out of high school in the 16th round in 2017, then chose college at Hawaii.
When the 2020 draft was cut to five rounds during the COVID year, he went unselected. Cleveland signed him as a free agent that June, and he has since become the club’s closer midway through last season.
This year, Smith is 2-1 with a 2.76 ERA and a major league-leading 27 saves.
Bazzana arrived with even more spotlight. Cleveland took the Australian first overall in 2024 out of Oregon State, and he made his big league debut on April 28. Through his first 62 games, he has seven homers, 14 doubles, 12 steals and 27 RBIs.
The Marlins, though, come in as the hotter team. Miami has won six straight, while Cleveland has won only one of its last five.
The Marlins have also been especially tough at home, winning 16 of their last 18 at loanDepot park. They’ve already posted seven series sweeps this season, including two in the past week.
Miami will send veteran right-hander Sandy Alcantara to the mound. Alcantara is 10-4 with a 4.00 ERA, and he’s now reached double-digit wins for just the third time in his nine-season career, with all three of those seasons coming over the last four years. He won the National League Cy Young Award in 2022, going 14-9 that season.
Against Cleveland, Alcantara has made two career starts and is 0-1 with a 4.35 ERA. His season has also had some swings: he went 0-2 with a 7.39 ERA in May, then settled in with a 6-0 record and 3.35 ERA in June and a 1-0 mark with a 1.13 ERA so far this month.
At the plate, the Marlins are being led by shortstop Otto Lopez, a first-time All-Star who pointed out that Miami finished just four games out of the playoffs last year. This season, the Marlins would be in if the season ended today. Lopez leads the major leagues with a .345 batting average and has set a Marlins record with 127 hits before the All-Star Game.
In Other News...
Astros Suddenly Have A New Deadline Threat In The Mix
A strong recent stretch has nudged Miami into an unexpected spot as the trade deadline approaches, and it has the front office looking at ways to keep the momentum going. According to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the Marlins are weighing upgrades at third base, in the back of the rotation and in the late innings, a mix of needs that suggests they see a chance to keep pushing rather than simply standing pat.
Third base is one obvious area to watch, with Isaac Paredes and Eugenio Suarez among the names floating around, while the pitching side could lead Miami toward a deeper market of starters and relievers. The list of possible bullpen fits is broad enough to show how many different paths the club could take, and it leaves the bigger question hanging: how aggressive will the Marlins be when the market starts to move? [Read more 🡒]
Braves Suddenly Have A Real NL East Problem In Miami
Since June 1, the Marlins have gone from an afterthought in the NL East to one of the hottest teams in baseball, piling up wins at a pace that has changed the conversation around the club. They are now nine games over .500, sitting just 2.5 games behind Atlanta in the division while also keeping themselves in strong wild-card position, and the turnaround has been driven by a mix of steady production and timely contributions from players like Otto Lopez, Max Meyer and Liam Hicks.
The latest roster move only adds to the sense that Miami has real staying power, even as it manages a few bumps along the way. Owen Caissie is on the 10-day injured list with a mild right calf injury, and the club has already had to adjust around that absence while keeping its recent momentum intact, a reminder that the Marlins are no longer just chasing the Braves but trying to hold their place in a crowded postseason race. [Read more 🡒]
Otto Lopez Just Reached A Marlins Milestone Nobody Saw Coming
The Marlins kept rolling with their sixth straight win, finishing off a sweep of the Mariners and pushing themselves to 10 games over .500. In the middle of it all, Otto Lopez kept doing what has quietly become one of the biggest stories in Miami, adding another hit to a season that has turned him into the kind of everyday force this lineup has been missing.
Lopezs production has been impossible to ignore, even in a clubhouse that has suddenly found a rhythm from top to bottom. Janson Junk also gave Miami a needed boost in his return from injury, working five innings in his first appearance since mid-May, and now the attention shifts to a Guardians series that begins with Sandy Alcantara on the mound. [Read more 🡒]