The Cleveland Guardians dropped each of the first two games of the ALDS against the Chicago White Sox, managing a combined three runs on seven hits in those contests. Apparently, all they needed to get going was a shift to a blackout in Chicago, as the Guardians racked up nine runs on 11 11 in a 9-3 Game 3 victory.
Now, the Guardians trail 2-1 in the best-of-five series. Obviously, winning two more games without losing one is easier said than done against a formidable White Sox team, but after the Guardians saved their season on Wednesday, it feels like the odds of a comeback are higher than anyone anticipated heading into Game 3. Here are three reasons why.
Guardians have a dynamic rotation duo waiting in the wings
The Guardians are a team built around their pitching. Sure, they lost the first two games of this series, but they also held this dynamic White Sox offense to seven runs in those games. They held the White Sox to three runs again on Wednesday. Normally, allowing fewer than four runs per game would win you a lot of ballgames, and they're in position to do that in the remaining games of this series given the starting pitchers they have lined up.
Parker Messick is the projected Game 4 starter. His Game 1 outing was ruined by Munetaka Murakami, who launched a two-run homer against him, but that's all the damage he allowed in 4.1 innings of work, and that's fresh off a dominant 2.56 ERA rookie season. Gavin Williams was the Game 2 starter, and while the Guardians lost that game, he allowed just two runs in five innings and struck out 11 batters.
Messick and Williams are two of the best starters in the American League, and they're in the same rotation. Oh yeah, they'll both be on full rest, too. Beating them once is tough, and the White Sox deserve credit for doing so, but will they be able to do it again? Only time will tell.
White Sox pitching is in a pretty brutal state
On the flip side, can we talk about the White Sox pitching? Chicago deserves immense credit for getting this far with the pitching staff they have, but the only pitchers to go beyond three innings this postseason for Chicago are Sean Burke and Grant Taylor. Burke has had an excellent season, but Taylor is a reliever. This goes to show just how limited this pitching staff actually is. Will Venable has pushed the right buttons for the most part, but how sustainable is this, really?
There's a reason that teams prefer to shy away from this strategy. Trusting so many pitchers to pitch in every single game is tricky, as if one pitcher doesn't have his best stuff, that can lead to a disastrous outcome. Given how taxed and unreliable this staff is, who is going to pitch in Games 4 and 5?
Burke will play a major role in at least one of those games (he'd be on full rest in Game 5), and the White Sox have every reason to trust guys like Hagen Smith and Grant Taylor, but if I had to pick a pitching staff to trust for the remainder of this series, it's Cleveland's by a wide margin.
Jose Ramirez might finally be back
Perhaps most importantly though, Jose Ramirez looked like Jose Ramirez for the first time in a while. Ramirez had a brutal, injury-marred regular season (.688 OPS in 125 games), and he was just 0-for-6 with two walks and three strikeouts in this series heading into Game 3, but Wednesday's game looked different.
Ramirez went 2-for-4 with a walk, and he drove in a pair of runs. His day consisted of a 107.9 mph lineout, a 106.5 mph double, and a perfectly placed opposite-field two-run triple that plated a couple of key insurance runs for the Guardians. Say what you want about it being a one-game sample, but when's the last time Ramirez looked that good at the plate?
If Ramirez is swinging the bat like that, all of a sudden, the Guardians become much tougher to pitch to. At the end of the day, it's really hard for teams to win when their star players don't show up. Ramirez going 0-for the series entering Wednesday's action was a huge reason why the Guardians were on the verge of elimination. If he can get hot right now, it'll be much tougher for the White Sox to deliver the knockout blow.
Add us as a preferred source on Google