Two double plays helped Messick before Tampa Bay’s three-run fourth

The sinker supplied grounders; the changeup supplied misses

Messick threw 39 four-seamers, 21 sinkers and 16 changeups. He also used three sliders, two curveballs and one cutter. The fastball classifications accounted for 60 of his 82 pitches, but they contributed in different ways.

The primary comparison contains 2,948 physical pitches from Messick’s 32 Cleveland regular-season starts, March 30 through September 27. His sinker share rose from 15.0% in that sample to 25.6% in Game 2, an increase of 10.6 percentage points. Four-seamers occupied 47.6% of this start against 41.8% during the season, while changeups fell from 23.6% to 19.5%.

His four-seamer averaged 95.5 mph, compared with 94.4 in the regular season. The sinker averaged 94.0 against 92.8. Those higher averages coexisted with fewer whiffs. A whiff normally means a swing that misses; the conventional tracking count also includes caught foul tips. The outing’s six whiffs in 34 swings were 17.6%, compared with 365 in 1,433, or 25.5%, during the season.

All 11 swings at sinkers made contact. Six became balls in play, including the double plays by Simpson in the second inning and Yandy Díaz in the third. Three other sinkers became called strikes. That is evidence of a pitch contributing through takes and grounders, even without a swing-and-miss result.

The changeup supplied three of Messick’s six recorded whiffs, including the strikeout pitches to Mesa in the first inning and Jonny DeLuca in the fourth. One four-seam whiff to Díaz was a caught foul tip, so five swings missed the ball outright. Messick also obtained 13 called strikes across the start, eight with four-seamers.

The matchup distribution explains part of the selection difference. Left-handed hitters received 33 of the 82 pitches, or 40.2%, compared with 26.5% in the regular-season sample. Seventeen of those 33 pitches were sinkers, a 51.5% share against left-handers, compared with 29.3% during the season. Against right-handers, Messick used only four sinkers in 49 pitches and delivered 15 of his 16 changeups.

Both the larger left-handed opportunity and the increased sinker share within those matchups matter. The complete mix changed descriptively, but the record does not establish Messick’s intended plan or what Tampa Bay’s hitters expected. The sinker-heavy left-handed sample is 33 pitches, not evidence that every future lineup will receive the same distribution.

Ground-ball outs did not mean uniformly soft contact

DeLuca’s leadoff single in the second inning and Simpson’s ensuing double-play grounder both reached 100 mph off the bat. The double play removed DeLuca before Ben Williamson walked. Messick then picked Williamson off first during Hicks’ interrupted plate appearance. The two pitches already thrown to Hicks remain part of the 82-pitch workload, although the pickoff ended the inning before Hicks completed the plate appearance.

Hicks and Taylor Walls began the third with consecutive singles. Díaz’s double play moved Hicks to third, and Jonathan Aranda grounded out on a sinker to end the inning. Messick reached the fourth at 45 pitches with no runs allowed, despite four hits and a walk. The two double plays and pickoff were material parts of that outcome.

The fourth began with a walk to Junior Caminero. Mesa’s grounder became a forceout after replay left Caminero out at second and overturned the out call at first. DeLuca then struck out on four pitches: a curveball foul, a low changeup taken for a ball, a missed four-seamer and a missed changeup. Simpson’s infield single kept the inning going before the error and Hicks’ scoring hit.

Ten of the 16 measured balls in play reached 95 mph, the Statcast threshold for hard contact, compared with 34.4% of 500 measured regular-season contacts. Their average exit velocity was 93.9 mph, against 86.6 in the season sample. Those measurements prevent the zero in the earned-runs column from becoming an explanation of the whole start. Some hard grounders became useful outs, while the softer grounder that Ramírez misplayed preceded a hard-hit scoring single.

Messick ended the fourth with a three-pitch strikeout of Walls, finishing him with a 95.6-mph four-seamer. He used 26 pitches in that inning and another 11 in a scoreless fifth, departing at 82 with no runners left for Cleveland’s bullpen. He hit Aranda with a sinker in the fifth, then retired Caminero on a flyout and Mesa on a popup. His four-seam velocity averaged 96.0 mph in the first inning and 93.6 across five four-seamers in the fifth. That observed decline does not establish fatigue or injury.

Grounders supplied valuable outs in this start, but their outcomes also depended on fielding and runner situations. The error accounts for the three unearned runs, while the hard-hit single after it remains part of Messick’s pitching record. A larger sample would test whether the sinker continues to generate useful grounders and whether he obtains more misses alongside them.