We knew it was going to be tough, especially with Chicago going with Sean Burke, who has been very tough in his career against the Cleveland Guardians.
They needed a great pitching performance, and they got one from Gavin Williams, who pitched 5.2 one hit innings, striking out 12 White Sox hitters. It was utter dominance and filth from the American League leader in strikeouts.
We have believed all year that even though Parker Messick had a tremendous season, Williams is the Guardians’ ace and he showed it last night.
It was a disappointing regular season for the player who is perpetually in the mix for league MVP, Jose Ramirez, who broke his hamate box in June, and played in pain after he got back in the lineup.
But in games three and four, Ramirez started hitting. He put Cleveland on top in the penultimate game with a home run, and in the deciding game, he hit a two-run dinger in the fourth, off a pitch which was almost in the dirt and pulled it into the seats for the only runs Steven Vogt’s squad needed.
After Williams ran out of gas, the bullpen was excellent. Erik Sabrowski struck out Munetaka Murakami with the bases loaded and two out in the sixth.
We were a bit surprised the Vogt didn’t stay with Sabrowski to start the 7th, but we guess he wanted to avoid right-handed bats Randal Grichuk and Tommy Pham, so he went with Hunter Gaddis, who struggled late in the year and earlier in the series.
Gaddis got four outs, all via the strikeout and got an extra out so Cade Smith didn’t have to go two full innings.
Then Cade Smith came on and got a huge out with two outs in the 8th, getting Miguel Vargas, the White Sox’ best hitter on a foul pop. Then he whiffed the side in the ninth to send the Guardians on to Tampa to take on the Rays in the League Championship Series for the second time in three seasons, and the 7th time in club history.
In total, Guardians’ pitchers struck out 21 Chicago hitters. You know there are only 27 outs in a game.
So, Cleveland is now four outs away from the World Series. They lost 5 of 6 against Tampa Bay in the regular season, scoring a grand total of 8 runs. The Rays only scored 20.
The Rays put the ball in play (unlike Chicago), they run, leading the league in stolen bases. The scores of the games during the regular season? 3-2, 1-0, 3-0, 1-0, with the outlier being an 11-3 Rays triumph. All of those game occurred before the trade deadline.
The Guardians will need to execute on offense, move runners, and maybe utilize the running game a bit more. And they will need Foster Griffin and Tanner Bibee, although the former did a great job in Game 3. It would not be a shock to see that pair start the first two games of the series.
The season continues for the Guardians. Baseball in mid-October. The only thing better is playing in late October.
