Chicago White Sox (4) at Cleveland Guardians (2), 1:00 PM ET

CHW: LHP Hagen Smith (3-3, 1.29 ERA, 79 DRA-), CLE: LHP Parker Messick (12-9, 2.56 ERA, 77 DRA-)

It would have been difficult to imagine Parker Messick and Hagen Smith as Game 1 starters of the ALDS at the beginning of the season, for very different reasons. In Messick’s case, it might have been easier to fathom—he was highly impressive in a limited sample in 2025, and it was less about his overall quality than that he was almost certainly going to slot in behind Gavin Williams and Tanner Bibee should the Guardians get this far. In Smith’s case, he spent the majority of the year in Double-A, walking nearly seven batters per nine. In his Triple-A time, the walk rate dropped to six per nine. There’s also the part where he’s mostly been used as a reliever in his time in the majors, plus the unlikely nature of the White Sox’ entire season.

We’ll start with the hometown hurler in Messick. Would you just look at that movement chart above? I generally stare at people like a dog looks at an answering machine when their owner’s voice comes out of it when they talk about “pretty movement charts” but it clicks for me on this one. Messick won’t crank up the velo, generally average around 94 between his two fastballs, but he can show hitters just about any kind of movement out of a highly repeatable slot. He’s got a deep mix, with six pitches, and while only two of them rate well by StuffPro, four do by PitchPro, which tells you he’s able to put his offerings where he wants them. Things look even better looking at our arsenal metrics, as his surprise factor and movement spreads both pop—all that basically means is that his deep arsenal makes it hard for hitters to guess what’s coming, his repeatable mechanics, slot, and tunneling make it hard for them to identify it when it’s on its way, and even when they think they might, his pitches’ ability to diverge from each other is quite good. His command is noticeable in the plots below, too—Messick is great at keeping changeups down below the zone, and off the plate to righties/inside to lefties; using the curve as a chase pitch to lefties but also to steal a strike to righties; and elevating the four-seam, while also showing dramatically different usage of the slider based on handedness. If you’re a fan of an opposing team, it can be infuriating to watch him pitch because it never looks like any of it is that difficult to deal with…only batters are so rarely able to. Perhaps the only thing more infuriating is if you’re the batter facing him.

Smith is a much simpler pitcher, if no less vexing to face. North of 80% of his pitches will either be a fastball or a slider, and while some of that is owed to his usage as a reliever in the majors this year, it’s also because they’re both very good pitches and he likes to lean on them. Smith will be in this game for a good time, but not a long time. Though he was a starter in the minors, he’s just not built up enough to turn the lineup over multiple times, and the White Sox have a bevy of multi-inning relief options behind him. This will not be a conventional starter role, but it’s also not likely to be an opener situation, nor the traditional one-arm-per-inning bullpen game. Chicago might be short on overall depth within their pitching staff, but they have a lot of flexibility within that smaller list of names.