The Guardians have turned this ALDS on its head, and the biggest reason goes beyond the box score.
Yes, the offense finally came alive. Scoring 18 combined runs in Games 3 and 4 is the kind of burst that can drag a team back from the edge and into a Game 5.
That will get plenty of attention, and it should. But the more important shift has been on the mound, where the White Sox’s greatest early advantage has started to crack.
For the first two games, Chicago’s bullpen looked untouchable. The White Sox used the strange rhythm of this Wild Card-era format to lean hard on their top relief arms, and it worked beautifully.
Grant Taylor was at the center of it. In Game 1, he covered four scoreless innings and picked up the save.
In Game 2, he came back and worked 1.1 scoreless innings for another save.
Then came Game 4.
Taylor didn’t record an out. He was tagged for four earned runs on four hits, and the Guardians used that opening to blow the game wide open. For a stretch, it looked like Cleveland had erased all doubt that Chicago would close this out at home.
That’s the danger of riding a bullpen too hard in October. It can feel like a masterstroke when it’s humming, but overexposure has a way of showing up at the worst possible time. A reliever can dominate early in a series and then suddenly look vulnerable once the workload piles up.
Now the White Sox are the ones on edge heading into Game 5, and another bullpen game is likely waiting for them.
The Guardians, meanwhile, get to walk into the finale with Gavin Williams on the mound and the momentum squarely on their side. Williams shut down the White Sox in Game 2, and he also came in to finish Game 4, even if the move was questionable in the moment. The result mattered more than the process: Cleveland won.
That leaves the Guardians with house money and the White Sox carrying the pressure. Chicago was up 2-0 in this series, and in a five-game set that kind of lead is not impossible to lose. It would not be historic in the way a 3-0 collapse would be, but it would still sting, especially given how lifeless the Guardians’ offense looked earlier and how suddenly the White Sox pitching has started to wobble.
At some point, the math catches up to a bullpen-heavy plan. No team can keep living on bullpen game after bullpen game forever.
That doesn’t mean the Guardians are guaranteed to finish the comeback. It just means the position they’re in is the one you’d rather have. They’ve flipped the script, and they know they’ll go into Game 5 with an ace on the mound while the White Sox bullpen no longer looks invincible.
Given the way these teams have played, the finale should be strange, tense, and probably a little chaotic.
Now Cleveland gets to sleep better knowing the momentum has changed hands.
In Other News...
Foster Griffin Gave Cleveland The Outing Nobody Saw Coming
Foster Griffins appearance in Game 3 of the American League Division Series was the kind of surprise outing that can change the feel of a postseason game. In just 2 2/3 innings of relief, Griffin struck out seven, matching the Guardians postseason record for strikeouts by a reliever and helping fuel a night in which Clevelands pitching staff piled up 19 strikeouts, an MLB postseason record for a nine-inning game.
What made it stand out even more was the setting around it. This was only Griffins second major league relief appearance and his first this season, so there was no real reason to expect him to become a central figure in a playoff game with that much on the line. Instead, he gave Cleveland an outing nobody saw coming, and in October, those are the performances that tend to linger. [Read more 🡒]
Guardians Kept Their Season Alive And Now Everything Comes Home
The Guardians are headed back home with their season still intact after a 9-5 win over the White Sox in Game 4 of the ALDS. Cleveland had to answer after falling into an elimination game, and the lineup delivered enough punch to force a decisive Game 5, with the offense breaking through in a big way and giving the club another chance to keep its October run going.
Jos Ramrez was right in the middle of it, helping steady a night that could have slipped away and giving Cleveland the kind of lift it needed when the pressure was highest. Now the focus shifts back to home turf, where the Guardians will try to finish the job and move on to the ALCS, with everything in the series now coming down to one more game. [Read more 🡒]
Guardians Suddenly Face A Game 5 Gavin Williams Dilemma
A tense Game 4 win over the White Sox left the Guardians with a familiar October problem and a new wrinkle at the same time. Stephen Vogt leaned on multiple bullpen arms to protect the lead, and one of the more surprising moves was turning to starter Gavin Williams in relief as Cleveland tried to push the American League Division Series to a winner-take-all Game 5.
That usage now hangs over the next days planning, because Williams had not been part of the late-inning relief mix before and was asked to get through just one inning. Vogt said both Williams and Cade Smith should still be options for Game 5, but Cleveland suddenly has to sort out how much it can ask from a starter it may have needed more than expected just to survive the previous night. [Read more 🡒]