The Cleveland Guardians refused to go home on Thursday night. Down 2-0 in the series and facing elimination in Chicago, they erupted for nine runs, including a six-run sixth inning, beat the White Sox 9-5, and forced a winner-take-all ALDS Game 5 on Saturday night. A series that looked dead on Tuesday is now the best theater in baseball.
The comeback started two nights earlier with a 9-3 rout in Chicago that forced Game 4. On Thursday, Cleveland simply picked up where it left off, only louder.
The night it turned
Chicago struck first, plating two runs in the third off Guardians starter Parker Messick, who walked four in the first three innings and forced manager Stephen Vogt to tear up his pitching plan early. The White Sox added two more in the fifth for a 4-3 lead, and the sellout crowd at Rate Field could smell the series-clincher.
Then came the fifth. Patrick Bailey, who did not even start the game, pinch-hit for Austin Hedges and tagged Erick Fedde for a 376-foot solo homer, 110 mph off the bat, the hardest-hit ball of Bailey’s career. It sneaked inside the right-field foul pole and put Cleveland on the board. Steven Kwan singled, and Jose Ramirez launched a two-run shot beyond the right-center bullpen on an 0-1 pitch. Just like that, 4-3 Guardians.
The sixth was an avalanche: six runs on five hits, with Bailey adding a go-ahead RBI single in the middle of the rally. The 9-4 lead held. Chicago’s Miguel Vargas opened the ninth with a homer and the Sox put two more aboard, but closer-by-committee Gavin Williams escaped the jam, and Cleveland celebrated its second straight must-win.
Bailey’s bench heroics
Bailey finished 2-for-3 with a homer, two runs, and two RBIs in a game he did not start. October heroes love arriving off the bench. His pinch-hit homer was the first of the entire series for either team, which tells you how tightly these two clubs had been squeezing each other.
Ramirez did what franchise players are supposed to do: when the season is on the line, hit the ball out of the park. And a Guardians pitching staff pieced together across eight arms after Messick’s early exit bent all night and broke exactly zero times when it counted.
Saturday night, winner takes all
First pitch is Saturday, 8 p.m. ET at Progressive Field in Cleveland, on TBS. Since MLB introduced the best-of-five division series in 1995, only seven teams have completed a comeback after falling behind 2-0. Cleveland is one win from becoming the eighth.
The winner gets the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Championship Series. Tampa Bay swept the Yankees 3-0 and has been sitting at home rested, which is either an advantage or a recipe for rust. On the National League side, the Brewers finished off the Padres 3-1 and will meet the Dodgers in an NLCS rematch. October is wide open.
What to watch
Vogt burned through eight pitchers in Game 4, and the Game 5 starter plans got scrambled when Messick struggled early. Williams, thought to be in line to start Saturday, was used to close Game 4. The bullpen chess between Vogt and White Sox manager Will Venable on Saturday night, bullpen management, pinch-hit timing, the works, will be as good as anything on television this weekend.
Whether Cleveland finishes the comeback or not, this is the kind of October run fans remember for years. Eighteen runs across two elimination games on the road. A series dragged back from the dead. Clear your Saturday evening. This is why October baseball exists.
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