Left-hander Parker Messick carried the Cleveland Guardians’ pitching staff for large portions of the regular season. He finished the year with a 2.56 ERA and 193 strikeouts, stats that should make him a finalist for the AL Cy Young Award alongside Cam Schlittler and Dylan Cease.
The 25-year-old has pitched a lot this year, though. He doesn’t look fresh at the moment, and that became evident on Sunday’s Game 5 of the American League Championship Series. Messick allowed a couple of runs in just two innings of work, surrendering five hits and two walks. He was lucky to escape without further damage.
The southpaw, however, says he is fresh and that his workload is not an issue.
“I feel great right now,” Messick said. “Body feels good, arm feels good. I’m still throwing hard. I don’t really have any body fatigue. It’s just whether or not I’m executing the game plan.”
He might say one thing, but the results and the evidence seem to point toward fatigue, which, by the way, isn’t only reflected in pitch velocity. He doesn’t seem to be recovering well between starts, and his command is not the same.
Messick has thrown 186.1 innings in the regular season and 13.2 in the playoffs. That’s good for a total of 200 mostly high-leverage frames, plus a stressful spring in which he was pitching for a rotation spot.
The 200 innings represent a significant jump from last year’s 138.1 innings. That’s an increase of well over 60 innings. His arm isn’t used to this workload, but he will eventually get there.
He will not admit it, but physical and mental fatigue might be starting to become a factor, and if that’s the case, it would be completely understandable. Messick has given Cleveland everything he’s got this year and developed into an ace when the organization needed one.
There’s a chance that he has thrown his last pitch of the year, but as long as the Guardians don’t lose another game against the Rays, they will still be alive. Perhaps we can see Messick in the Fall Classic.
For that to happen, however, the Guardians need to win two straight elimination games.
NEXT: Guardians Would Have One Big Advantage In A Game 7
