Will Venable had bigger things on his mind Thursday than the future of Major League Baseball’s calendar.
With the White Sox sitting one win from the ALCS and preparing for Game 4 of their ALDS matchup with the Cleveland Guardians, Chicago’s manager brushed aside talk of the league’s proposed schedule changes. ESPN’s Jesse Rogers shared Venable’s reaction on X, formerly Twitter, after the question came up ahead of the game at Rate Field.
“Respectfully, I could care less in this moment right now,”
That pretty much said it all. The White Sox are up 2-1 in the series, the Guardians are on the brink, and Chicago has a chance to reach the ALCS for the first time since 2005.
MLB’s proposal would trim the regular season from 162 games to 154 starting in 2029 and expand the Division Series from a best-of-five format to a best-of-seven. The league also wants higher-seeded teams to pick their opponents in the Wild Card Series and Division Series beginning in 2027.
For now, though, those ideas are still just proposals. They have not been approved, and MLB has linked them to larger collective-bargaining talks that also include a salary-cap and floor system opposed by the MLB Players Association.
None of that changes the immediate task in front of Venable and the White Sox. Chicago won the first two games of the series before Cleveland answered with a 9-3 win in Game 3 on Wednesday to stay alive.
The White Sox, making their first postseason trip since 2021 after three straight regular seasons of at least 101 losses, will start left-hander Hagen Smith in Game 4. The Guardians will counter with rookie left-hander Parker Messick.
A win would send Chicago through to the ALCS. A Cleveland victory would push the series to a decisive Game 5 on Saturday at Progressive Field.
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White Sox Enter Crucial Game 4 With One Big Decision Looming
The White Sox are back home for Game 4 of the American League Division Series, with Cleveland still looking for its first homer of the series and Jos Ramrez looming as the most obvious threat to change that. Chicagos pitching plan has not been announced, which makes this feel like one of those October games where the manager is forced to keep a few options open and read the matchup pitch by pitch.
Munetaka Murakami enters the night as the favorite to leave the yard, helped by the kind of postseason power that can tilt a game in a hurry. For the White Sox, the bigger question may be less about who starts and more about how quickly they can match Clevelands urgency if the Guardians finally start driving the ball with authority. [Read more 🡒]
White Sox Suddenly Have A Big-Inning Problem At The Worst Time
The White Sox had the kind of night that can flip a Division Series in an instant, building leads of 2-0 and 4-3 before watching the game slip away against the Guardians. Early pitching trouble from Hagen Smith and Jordan Hicks put pressure on Chicago right away, and even after the offense did enough to keep the game close, the pitching staff could not hold the line long enough to protect the advantage.
The pivotal stretch came in the sixth, when Cleveland pushed across multiple runs against Anthony Kay and Grant Taylor and turned a one-run game into a much steeper climb for Chicago. A late White Sox push kept things from getting completely out of hand, but the comeback effort never quite got there, leaving the club to regroup as the series shifts to Cleveland. [Read more 🡒]
White Sox Let A Closeout Game Turn Into A Brutal Reset
A chance to take a commanding step in the American League Division Series slipped away as the White Sox were beaten 9-3 by the Guardians in Game 3, trimming Chicagos series lead to 2-1. What had looked like a closeout opportunity instead turned into a night in which Clevelands pitching dictated the pace, piling up 19 strikeouts in nine innings and setting a major league postseason record in the process.
Chicago also had to watch Clevelands lineup come alive at key moments, with Jos Ramrez collecting two hits that included a two-run triple. Jo Adell added to the damage with a bases-clearing triple, turning what had been a tight postseason game into a stern reset for a White Sox club that now has a shorter runway than it did before first pitch. [Read more 🡒]