A Walk in the Park: Ramírez Homers Off the Dirt as Guardians Win ALDS
By Jess Henderson ·
José Ramírez golfed a curveball that was nearly in the dirt for a two-run homer in the fourth inning, Gavin Williams struck out 12, and the Guardians beat the White Sox 2-0 at Progressive Field on Saturday night to win the American League Division Series 3-2 after losing the first two games.
Stephen Vogt had put the choice plainly on Friday. "Gavin wants the ball. We want him to have the ball, and it's his game," he said, per MLB.com and NBC Sports, after Gavin Williams closed Game 4 with an 18-pitch save and then walked by the manager's office to say he was ready for whatever came next. Williams answered with 5 2/3 scoreless innings, one hit, and 12 strikeouts, tying Charles Nagy's franchise postseason single-game strikeout record from the 1996 ALDS, according to CBS Sports. José Ramírez supplied the only runs Cleveland needed.
Neither lineup found a hit through three innings. Sarah Langs noted it was the fourth winner-take-all postseason game with no hits through three innings, joining three other ALDS Game 5s. Sean Burke was matching Williams pitch for pitch until the fourth. Williams struck out Kyle Teel, Miguel Vargas and Munetaka Murakami in order in the top half. In the bottom, Steven Kwan lined a single to right and Ramírez worked a 2-2 count. Burke threw the chase knuckle curve he wanted, 78 mph and 0.74 feet above the ground. Ramírez golfed it just over the right-field wall, 97.2 mph off the bat and 348 feet per Statcast figures reported by MLB.com. Tim Stebbins wrote that it was the lowest pitch Ramírez has ever homered on, and the lowest pitch anyone has hit for a postseason homer under tracking since 2008. Ramírez came back out for a curtain call. Cleveland led 2-0, and that was the final score.
I have sat through light rain at ballparks before because leaving somehow felt worse than staying, and a 65-degree drizzle with the wind blowing out to center is exactly the weather that keeps you in the seat. Williams struck out Andrew Benintendi and Chase Meidroth around a Tristan Peters groundout in the fifth, part of a stretch in which he retired 10 batters in a row, seven of them on strikeouts, per CBS Sports. The White Sox did not put a ball in play against him that counted as a hit until Kyle Teel lined a two-out single to right in the sixth with Colson Montgomery aboard after a hit-by-pitch.
That sixth inning was Chicago's best chance. Brenton Doyle struck out and Sam Antonacci flew out before Teel's single. Vargas walked to load the bases. Vogt went to left-hander Erik Sabrowski, who had stranded a bases-loaded mess in Game 4, and Sabrowski struck out Murakami on a foul tip. None of Williams's three inherited runners scored. Hunter Gaddis and Cade Smith took the rest of the night from there. Gaddis struck out four in 1 1/3 innings. Smith finished with a five-out save, his first of that length in his career according to The Guardian, and struck out the side in the ninth. Peters went down swinging for the final out.
Burke lasted five innings and 71 pitches. He allowed four hits, including the Ramírez homer, walked nobody, and struck out four. Petey Halpin doubled in the Cleveland fifth and was thrown out at third, Peters to Chase Meidroth to Vargas. Sean Newcomb worked two scoreless innings after Burke. Grant Taylor navigated traffic in the eighth when Halpin doubled again, Brayan Rocchio moved him to third, Kwan walked, and Taylor intentionally walked Ramírez to load the bases. Chase DeLauter grounded into a force at home, and Jo Adell grounded out. Cleveland left the bases loaded and still led by two.
The White Sox managed three hits and struck out 21 times. Murakami and Benintendi each went down four times. Across the five-game series Chicago struck out 75 times, which CBS Sports reported was well beyond the previous Division Series record of 64. Ramírez went 0-for-6 in the first two games, both Cleveland losses, then 5-for-12 with two home runs and seven RBIs in the three wins, per MLB.com's Tim Stebbins. The Guardians are the 11th team to lose the first two games of a best-of-five postseason series and then come back to win it, and the first to do so since the 2017 Yankees completed the same climb against Cleveland in this ballpark.
Williams, asked about the night afterward, put the assignment simply. "I've got one job to do, and that's to throw strikes," he said, per TNT Sports. He had already explained the short turn from Thursday's bullpen outing as ordinary work. "The body feels good right now," he said Friday, via NBC Sports. "It's just a normal day really."
Up Next
Cleveland opens the American League Championship Series on Monday night against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. The White Sox, who took the first two games of this series on the road and could not finish it at Progressive Field, go home after a season that climbed out of three straight 100-loss years into October. For the Guardians, the climb from 0-2 is finished, and four more wins would put them in the World Series.