Riley Greene, Tigers beat Parker Messick and Guardians

CLEVELAND — The Guardians were riding high after a dramatic doubleheader sweep of the Tigers on Friday got them within 2½ games of the first-place White Sox. It was a fleeting moment. A day after two big victories got potential postseason excitement flowing, Cleveland came crashing down quickly Saturday in a 6-0 loss to Detroit in front of 30,000-plus fans ready to get raucous. "We capitalized (Friday) night, right? We won the games we had in front of us, and then today we got beat by a very good pitcher," manager Stephen Vogt said. "That was the story today and we'll be ready (Sunday)." The very good pitcher was two-time All-Star left-hander Framber Valdez, who shut down the Guardians' hit-or-miss offense over the first seven innings. "That's the most four-seam (fastballs) he's used, almost 20 percent four-seam tonight," Vogt said. "That's not something he historically does. The two fastballs, and he threw just enough off-speed (pitches), to keep us off of that." Valdez allowed consecutive singles to David Fry and Angel Genao to start the second before Petey Halpin's sacrifice bunt advanced each. But Austin Hedges' fly ball to right wasn't deep enough to score a run, and Brayan Rocchio grounded to short to end the inning. Cleveland didn't get another hit. The Guardians also had a quality performance from their starting pitcher, All-Star rookie left-hander Parker Messick, who allowed three runs over six innings and struck out a career-high 12 batters. Opposite-field homers to left from Riley Greene, an All-Star the past three seasons, scored two of the three runs off Messick. Greene, who attended high school in the same Florida area at the same time as Messick, had a career-high four hits and a career-high three extra-base hits, while driving in four runs. "He's seeing the ball really well. I think he owes me a fishing trip that we've been talking about the last few times I've seen him after tonight," Messick said of Greene, who went deep after Cleveland's pitcher struck out the first two batters of the game. "He's a great hitter and he's a huge part of their lineup. "I threw some balls that were kind of in his hot zone. To go backside left-center field is just a really good swing. I throw those balls there to a lot of other lefties and don't get that same result." Messick's streak of allowing two runs or fewer ended at 10 starts, but he bumped up his season strikeout total to 173. It is the second-most for a rookie in franchise history behind Herb Score's 245 in 1955. "It's an incredible honor. There have been some really talented arms that have been able to pitch for Cleveland, so just to be part of that company is an incredible honor," Messick said. "I'm super blessed. I'm just going to try to keep getting better." After Greene's RBI single put the Tigers in front 2-0 in the third, Messick retired eight straight — five on strikeouts — but Detroit's left fielder got him again on a leadoff homer that put his team in front 3-0 in the sixth. "I thought Parker was great. I thought he did everything he could to keep us in the game," Vogt said. "Obviously, the two home runs, but he pitched outstanding, another quality start for Parker. Their guy was really good tonight." Austin Peterson made his major league debut for the Guardians. After allowing a single to the first batter he faced, John Peck, the right-hander retired six straight over the final two innings, including a strikeout of Greene in the ninth. "That was fun. Good for AP. There were a couple misplays and he didn't let it shake him. Two really solid innings, that was a nice little bright spot tonight." Contact Chris Assenheimer at (440) 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him @CAwesomeheimer on X.