Messick loses no-hit bid in 9th; Guardians hold on

Smith then retired pinch hitter Colton Cowser on a fly to center and Samuel Basallo on a grounder for his fourth save.

"I mean, it sucks, but it's baseball," Messick said. "It might happen for me one day, if the Lord wills. I'll have plenty more years to pitch some baseball games, so, you know, it might happen again, so my only thought is just lock back in and get the next guy out."

It was the first time in 11 career starts that Messick went more than seven innings. He was the 54th overall pick in the 2022 amateur draft out of Florida State and made his big league debut last year.

Messick threw 112 pitches, 78 for strikes. The 69.6% strike rate was the third-highest of his career. He walked two and equaled a career best with nine strikeouts. He was charged with two runs in eight-plus innings.

Messick got ahead of hitters early with 21 first-pitch strikes to the 27 batters he faced. The 18 swings and misses also tied a career high.

Cleveland has the longest current gap between no-hitters. The team's last one was Len Barker's perfect game May 15, 1981, against the Toronto Blue Jays, a 7,055-day gap that is the fourth-longest in MLB history.

Thursday marked the franchise's sixth straight failed no-hit bid after reaching the ninth inning, tied for the second-longest streak by a team in the Expansion Era (since 1961), trailing only the Boston Red Sox's nine straight between Dave Morehead's no-hitter in 1965 and Hideo Nomo's no-hitter in 2001.

Information from The Associated Press and ESPN Research was used in this report.