Guardians Stun White Sox 9-5 in Game 4 to Force Winner-Take-All ALDS Game 5

CHICAGO — The Cleveland Guardians were two runs down and six innings from the end of their season. Ninety minutes later, they were one win from the American League Championship Series. The Guardians beat the Chicago White Sox 9-5 in Game 4 of the American League Division Series on Thursday night at Rate Field — a game played, remarkably, amid a blackout at the ballpark, according to USA Today — to level the best-of-five series at two games apiece and force a winner-take-all Game 5 on Saturday night in Cleveland.

Game 5 is scheduled for Saturday at Progressive Field, with the winner advancing to meet the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Championship Series, according to Reuters. The Rays completed their three-game sweep of the New York Yankees on Wednesday night, and have been resting and waiting ever since.

Chicago had seized control of the series at the start, winning the first two games at Progressive Field. But Cleveland has now answered with two straight victories on the South Side, and the White Sox have squandered back-to-back chances to clinch a postseason series at home for the first time since the 1906 World Series against the crosstown Cubs, according to Reuters. A win on Thursday would have sent Chicago to the ALCS for the first time since 2005, according to Fox Sports. Instead, the series goes back to Ohio with all of the momentum in Cleveland’s dugout.

A six-run sixth erases another White Sox lead

The White Sox struck first. In the third inning, Munetaka Murakami worked a bases-loaded walk off Guardians rookie left-hander Parker Messick, and Sam Antonacci followed with a pinch-hit RBI sacrifice fly off Shawn Armstrong to give Chicago a 2-0 lead, according to Reuters.

Cleveland’s answer arrived in the fifth, in the space of five batters. Pinch-hitter Patrick Bailey led off the inning with a solo home run — the Guardians’ first home run of the entire series, according to USA Today — and Steven Kwan’s one-out single chased Erick Fedde from the game. Jordan Hicks entered in relief and, on an 0-1 count, threw a 99.9 mph fastball that Jose Ramirez drove deep to right-centre for a two-run, go-ahead home run, according to an Associated Press report.

The lead did not survive the inning. Chicago hit back in the bottom of the fifth: Antonacci was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to tie the game at 3-3, and Brenton Doyle’s sacrifice fly put the White Sox back in front 4-3, according to Fox Sports.

Then came the sixth — ten Cleveland batters, three Chicago pitchers, and the inning that may have saved the Guardians’ season. According to Reuters, eight consecutive Cleveland hitters reached base via five hits, two walks and a hit batter. Travis Bazzana’s RBI double tied the game, Bailey added a go-ahead single, and Jo Adell’s opposite-field two-run single off Grant Taylor put Cleveland ahead for good. By the time the inning ended, the score was 9-4.

The bullpen ace becomes the loser

The sight of Taylor absorbing the damage was the game’s cruellest irony. The right-hander had been Chicago’s postseason bullpen weapon, earning a four-inning save in Game 1 and a one-and-a-third-inning save in Game 2, according to Reuters. On Thursday night he did not retire a single batter — four runs, four hits and two walks before being lifted — and the reliever he had replaced, Anthony Kay, was charged with two runs in a third of an inning and took the loss.

Miguel Vargas gave Chicago a flicker of hope with a solo home run off closer Cade Smith to lead off the ninth. Smith then walked Murakami before departing for Gavin Williams, who worked around a single to record the final three outs — Braden Montgomery lining out to left with two runners aboard to end it. It was the first career relief appearance for Williams, who could start Saturday’s Game 5 for Cleveland, according to the Associated Press.

Ramirez finished with three RBIs, Bailey added two, and Nathaniel Lowe collected two hits. For Chicago, Antonacci drove in two runs and Colson Montgomery had two hits, according to Reuters. Erik Sabrowski earned the win with an inning of scoreless relief, while Cleveland’s pitchers registered 12 strikeouts on the night and White Sox pitchers issued seven walks.

Analysis: Why It Matters

Start with the history, because it frames everything. Since Major League Baseball introduced the best-of-five Division Series format in 1995, only seven teams have completed a comeback after falling behind 2-0, according to USA Today. Clubs that take a 2-0 lead in a best-of-five postseason series have gone on to win 83 of 93 times, according to the Associated Press. The Guardians are now bidding to become the eighth such team. That is the scale of what Saturday offers them — and the scale of what the White Sox would squander by losing it.

Then consider the bullpen paradox, because it decided Game 4. Modern playoff baseball is built on leverage: managers ride their best arms as hard as the calendar allows, and the White Sox had made a doctrine of it — Taylor’s four-inning save in Game 1 was a statement of intent. But leverage is a wasting asset. The Associated Press observed that Chicago’s bullpen, one of its greatest strengths across a surprising season, is suddenly looking tired, and Thursday’s collapse was the evidence. Kay and Taylor were asked to do the hardest job in the sport — protect a one-run lead in an elimination game — on arms that had already carried the first two games of the series. This is the perennial October dilemma: the relievers a manager trusts most are the ones he has already spent. Cleveland’s reward for stretching the series one extra night is that Chicago’s most trusted bridge is now burnt, and the White Sox must find a new way across on Saturday.

Then there is the White Sox’s particular torment, which is becoming a story in its own right. This franchise has not reached the ALCS since 2005, the year it won the World Series. Two nights running it has held a series-clinching game in its own ballpark — and, according to Reuters, it has not clinched a postseason series at home since the 1906 World Series against the Cubs. Narratives have a way of compounding pressure: every missed chance makes the next one feel heavier. Game 5 is in Cleveland now, but the weight the White Sox carry to Progressive Field may be heavier than any home crowd — they were the better team for two games, then the worse team for two games, and the tiebreaker will be decided on the road against a club that has just discovered it can hit.

Consider, too, the timing of Ramirez. The seven-time All-Star broke a bone in his left hand on a swing on June 13 and had surgery; since returning, power had been scarce — Thursday’s blast was only his second home run since September 1, a span of 26 games, according to the Associated Press. Stars are supposed to shrink in October or grow; Ramirez had done neither until the fifth inning, when he drove a near-100 mph fastball over the right-centre field wall. It was the swing of a player choosing his moment. Cleveland’s offence had not hit a single home run in the series’ first three games; it hit two within five batters in Game 4. That is what a franchise player is for, and the Guardians will need more of it on Saturday.

Look ahead, and the stakes widen. The Rays are waiting — rested since Wednesday, the team that just swept the Yankees out of October. Whoever survives Saturday walks into the ALCS on short rest against a club that has had three days to set its rotation. The championship series will be shaped, in part, by how many pitches Saturday consumes. If Williams starts for Cleveland, as the Associated Press suggests is possible, his first career relief appearance on Thursday becomes an audition. If Chicago’s rotation has been thinned by the Game 4 damage, the White Sox may need length from arms they have been hiding all month.

Finally, the simple mathematics of momentum. Baseball people are fond of saying that momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher. Thursday’s sixth inning was the loudest counter-argument the sport has offered in years: a team down 2-0 in a series, down 4-3 in a game, scoring six runs in a single inning to stay alive. Cleveland now has to win one game, in its own park, to complete one of the great October turnarounds of the modern era. Chicago has to win one game, on the road, to stop a collapse that is already historic. Everything about Game 5 — the pitching, the crowd, the history — has the makings of a classic. October rarely promises one and delivers. This time, it has.

What to watch in Game 5

First pitch is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET on Saturday at Progressive Field in Cleveland, with television coverage on TBS and truTV, according to USA Today. The central question is pitching: Williams is a candidate to start for Cleveland after his Thursday relief stint, according to the Associated Press, while Chicago’s Game 5 starter had not been confirmed in published reports. Watch whether the White Sox bullpen can recover from the Game 4 damage to Taylor and Kay, whether the Bailey-Ramirez power surge carries over against Chicago’s adjusted plan, and how the Cleveland crowd — which watched its team lose the first two games of the series at home — responds to a win-or-go-home night with a genuine shot at history. The Rays, and the ALCS, await the winner.

Sources

• Reuters — “Guardians outslug White Sox, send ALDS back to Cleveland for Game 5” — Reuters
• USA Today — “Guardians beat White Sox to set up winner-take-all ALDS Game 5: Highlights” — USA Today
• Associated Press (via theScore) — “Jose Ramirez homers as the Guardians beat the White Sox” — theScore
• Fox Sports (Outkick) — “Guardians force decisive ALDS Game 5 as White Sox miss chance to reach first ALCS since 2005” — Fox Sports