No air conditioning is needed in Cleveland on Saturday night, because they are feeling the breeze of the Chicago White Sox bats.
Guardians pitchers combined to strike out a nine-inning postseason record 21 White Sox batters, as they completed the comeback from down 2-0 in the American League Division Series to win Game 5, 2-0.
Gavin Williams got the start for Cleveland and dominated from the jump – of the 21 batters he faced, 12 of them went down on strikes. He tossed 5.2 scoreless innings, allowing just one hit, two walks, and a hit batsman.
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Williams was shoving all night, but Jose Ramirez gave him quite a nice cushion, golfing a two-run home run in the fourth inning. The pitch was 8.88 inches off the ground, the lowest for a postseason home run since at least 2008 and the lowest of Ramirez’s career.
That was all the Guardians needed, as Williams got five more outs, and the bullpen took care of the rest. Erik Sabrowski, Evan Gaddis, and Cade Smith combined to get the final 10 outs, striking out nine in the process (Sabrowski struck out the lone batter he faced, and Gaddis and Smith each punched out eight batters).
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Ramirez is a hero after what had been quite the down season. His .235 average, .320 on-base percentage, and .368 slugging percentage were all his lowest marks since 2015 when he was spending some of his time in Triple-A. He started out 0-for-6 in the series but went 5-for-12 in the final three, with two homers, a triple, and a double.
The White Sox have been prone to the strikeout all season long, having the fifth-highest strikeout rate in the league, but this was another level. In the regular season, they struck out 24.1% of the time, but that number bumped up to 63.6% on Saturday.
Cleveland lost the first two games of the series on their own home field, giving the White Sox a chance to clinch a series at home for the first time since 1906. But alas, they will now be headed home after Cleveland won three-consecutive elimination games.
The Guardians will face the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Championship Series, their second trip to the round in the last three seasons. The Rays are fresh off a sweep over their AL East rival New York Yankees.
The ALCS begin Monday in Florida, and the winner of that will face either the Los Angeles Dodgers, who are trying to threepeat, or the Milwaukee Brewers, whose small-market operation will try to dethrone the champs.
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