The Cleveland Guardians came from behind repeatedly on the road in Game 4 of the ALDS on Thursday night to defeat the Chicago White Sox, 9-5. With this victory, the Guardians, after losing the first two games of the series at home, forced a decisive fifth game in Cleveland on Saturday night. The winner will face the Tampa Bay Rays in the ALCS.
The Guardians fell behind 2-0 early and 4-3 after five as the White Sox looked to win the series in front of their home crowd. But Cleveland responded in a big way, pushing for six runs in the sixth to turn that one-point deficit into a five-point advantage. It was too much to overcome for the White Sox, who haven’t won a postseason at home since the 1906 World Series.
The White Sox are also 5-0 in potential road wins (excluding 2020, which weren’t true road games because there were no fans) — perhaps a good sign for Game 5. As for Game 4, here’s how things went.
Mid-round back-and-forth action
The White Sox had a 2-0 lead heading into the fifth inning and it looked like it would be a low-scoring night — a common theme in the postseason where, as of Thursday night, teams that scored more than four runs were 17-0. However, in the top of the fifth, Patrick Bailey hit a solo shot for the Guardians to cut the lead to 2-1. Then, José Ramírez crushed a two-run homer to greet White Sox reliever Jordan Hicks and turn the game in favor of the Guardians, 3-2.
The White Sox responded with a rally of their own. A leadoff walk then a walk with one out set the table for Munetaka Murakami. He singled to left field to load the bases. Sam Antonacci was hit by a pitch to bring home a point and tie the game 3-3. Brenton Doyle then hit a sacrifice fly to give the White Sox a 4-3 lead. Then Kyle Teel drew a walk to reload the bases, but Guardians reliever Erik Sabrowski entered the game and struck out Braden Montgomery to end the threat.
It seemed like a huge withdrawal at the time. We didn’t realize how big this was.
Goalies blow things up in the sixth
With one out, Guardians left fielder Angel Martínez was hit by a pitch and then stole second. Travis Bazzana doubled him and we were, as they say, disabled. Bailey would win the kickoff. Then, two walks followed to load the bases before Ramírez scored another to make it 6-4 for the Guardians. Chase DeLauter singled to make it 7-4. The bases were still loaded.
Jo Adell, the midseason acquisition who had been a run-scoring machine for the Guardians — including a three-RBI triple in Game 3 — hit a two-run single.
All of a sudden it was a 9-4 lead for the Guardians. Cleveland continued from there – until the White Sox staged a small rally in the ninth. Miguel Vargas led off the game with a home run, a blast that preceded a few more baserunners and prompted a pitching change that could impact Game 5 (we’ll get to that), but the Guardians escaped here.
The Guardians’ offense was among the worst in baseball during the regular season and was quiet at home to start the series with just three runs in two games. They have now scored nine runs each in the last two games and even hit two home runs in Game 4, their first two of the playoffs.
Looking ahead to game five
The series featured many creative uses of traditional starters and relievers. It’s possible that Game 5 was more of a traditional starting pitcher’s game.
But there are complications.
Gavin Williams should have and probably would have gotten the nod for the Guardians. He was 14-8 with a 3.76 ERA and a record 248 strikeouts in 184 ⅓ innings during the regular season. He started the second game of that series, and although the White Sox eventually took over, he allowed two runs in five innings with 11 strikeouts. The second run he was charged with was actually left out, as he allowed a single and then was removed from the game. The bullpen allowed the runner to score.
The complication here is that Williams was called up to finish Game 4. Guardians manager Stephen Vogt had already used six relievers before moving closer to Cade Smith in the eighth. Smith pitched two innings in Game 3. Once Smith gave up a homer to start the ninth, Vogt didn’t want to take any chances and turned to Williams, who threw 18 pitches to end things.
The Guardians’ plans for Game 5 are now in question. Williams can certainly start, but may not be able to go that deep in the game. Parker Messick was burned as a starter in Game 4. Tanner Bibee is a traditional starter and has not started the playoffs. He came on in relief in Game 4 and was bad, but only threw 15 pitches. Foster Griffin threw 53 pitches in Game 3.
After the game, Williams said he agreed with any decision the coaching staff made.
“I’m ready to go. It doesn’t matter,” Williams said (via WKYC). “Whatever they want me to do, I’ll do it. If I need to start, I’ll start. If I need to get out of the pen, I’ll get out of the pen.”
On the White Sox side, the guy would be Sean Burke, at least eventually. In Game 2, the White Sox started Anthony Kay and pulled him after a third of an inning for Sean Newcomb. Burke came in next and worked 5 ⅓ innings, allowing just one run on one hit while striking out six. He will get the bulk of the outs in game five, as he hasn’t pitched since game two.
In the regular season, he was 11-7 with a 3.34 ERA and 185 strikeouts in 172 ⅓ innings.
So to recap, this should have been a matchup between Williams and Burke, but things have been so complicated in the rest of the series that we can’t be sure exactly what we’re going to see.
Maybe the answer is chaos and that’s still amusing to the outside observer.
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In MLB playoff history10 teams fell behind two games to zero in a best-of-five series and come back to win the series. The most recent was in 2017, when this Cleveland franchise had a 2-0 lead over the Yankees, only for the Yankees to come back and win.
If we’re looking for a team that lost 2-0 at home, then came back to win two games on the road before closing out the home game in Game 5, we’d have to go back to 2015, when the Blue Jays lost two games at home to the Rangers, won two in Texas and then had that monster seventh inning in Game 5 with Jose Bautista’s famous bat flip.
In fact, this is the only time in this format where a team fell behind losing two games at home and won the series. The Guardians will look to join the 2015 Blue Jays.
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