Guardians score six times in the eighth inning to beat Astros and get Parker Messick off the hook

CLEVELAND — It was only fair that the Guardians rode to the rescue for Parker Messick on Tuesday night. The left-hander, who took a no-hitter into the ninth inning of his previous outing, was in jeopardy of suffering his first loss of the season and only second of his career, but Cleveland rallied late to beat Houston 8-5 at Progressive Field. Down 4-2 in the eighth, the Guardians scored six times, plating the go-ahead runs on a bases-clearing triple from rookie phenom Chase DeLauter. DeLauter wasn't necessarily an unlikely hero, but he stepped to the plate with only one hit in his last 26 at-bats and mired in an 0-for-12 skid before lining a 2-2 pitch from tough left-hander Bryan King down the right-field line. "It's no secret he hasn't gotten results (lately), but this kid's a good hitter. He stepped up in a huge way," manager Stephen Vogt said. "It was a cool moment for him, obviously a huge hit for us. We needed a comeback win like that tonight. That was awesome of our guys to never quit." After a monstrous start — 9-for-26 with five home runs and eight RBIs over the first seven regular-season games of his career — DeLauter has been a focal point of the opposition, going 7-for-50 prior to his game-winning hit. "I'm definitely getting pitched a little bit different. Weather hasn't been the best, but obviously the last week or so I've struggled a little bit at the plate," DeLauter said. "The game moves fast. You get off to a hot start, and teams want to figure out how to shut that down. I think the big thing is not falling into those adjustments and wondering why it's happening and what's going wrong. "But a great group of guys have my back. They tell me to keep showing up in the box every day. I have all the confidence in the world every day. I feel like a lot of guys, younger guys, start to have those (bad) thoughts roll in and to hear from the team that they believe in you to have you out there, it's a good feeling." Messick entered the night owning a 3-0 record and 1.05 ERA over four starts this year after going 3-1 with a 2.72 ERA last season in seven starts. He was sharp early, allowing only two hits over the first four innings — and four hits over his last 12 innings — but Houston chased him after scoring three times on four hits, a hit batter and a walk in the fifth. "That was the best I've actually felt all year, believe it or not," Messick said. "Coming off the high pitch count (Thursday), that was my highest average fastball (velocity of the season). That was kind of the sharpest some of my shapes have been on all of the pitches. I had really good stuff all day, body felt great. Is what it is, those last couple runs. Can't do much about it, but I was still throwing some of my hardest heaters later into the outing. I can't complain." "They made (Messick) work. I'm putting more credit on their at-bats off him more than anything else," Vogt said. "I thought he battled. They got to him a little bit in the fifth, but he was still able to finish the inning. "The performance five days ago was outstanding. The performance tonight was outstanding. He just didn't get as deep as we're used to seeing him so far this year, but you hold that lineup to three runs, that's doing a good job." Cleveland led first after scoring a run apiece in the first and second. George Valera's two-out single brought in Jose Ramirez in the first and Angel Martinez homered to right-center in the second off Astros starter Ryan Weiss. Despite putting runners aboard in four of the next five innings, Cleveland didn't score again until the eighth, when Brayan Rocchio extended his career-high hitting streak to eight games with a single up the middle to bring his team within a run at 4-3. DeLauter's triple made it 6-4, and Kyle Manzardo added a two-run single to complete the Guardians' biggest inning of the season. "I don't know if the frustration was mounting up with the traffic we've been getting (lately), but it was definitely nice to break free with Chase, and then Manzo with a huge insurance single," Vogt said. "We always believe we're going to get a lot of runs and sometimes it works that way, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes hits fall and sometimes they don't," DeLauter said. "I think the big thing for us is to keep that energy up, to keep the main goal in mind, have great at-bats, move on to the next guy and good things happen." The Guardians improved to 9-0 when catcher Austin Hedges is in the lineup, compared to a 5-11 mark with Bo Naylor or David Fry starting behind the plate. "I definitely love having him back there," Messick said of Hedges. "I mean, he's an animal. He does everything right as far as what a catcher should be." Contact Chris Assenheimer at (440) 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter @CAwesomeheimer.