Williams, Ramírez lift Guardians to 2-0 win, complete comeback in ALDS
José Ramírez’s two-run homer in the fourth and a record strikeout night from Gavin Williams carried Cleveland to a 2-0 victory that erased an 0-2 hole in the best-of-five series.
The Guardians beat the White Sox 2-0 on Saturday night as Gavin Williams and José Ramírez delivered when it mattered most. Ramírez’s two-run, go-ahead home run in the fourth provided the only offense, and Williams accounted for 12 of Cleveland’s record 21 strikeouts in the nine-inning game. The win completed Cleveland’s comeback from an 0-2 deficit in the best-of-five AL Division Series; Cleveland became the 11th team among 96 to win a best-of-five series after trailing 0-2, the first to do it since the 2017 New York Yankees against the Cleveland Indians and only the fourth to do so after losing the first two games at home.
Chicago starter Sean Burke retired the first nine Guardians hitters before Steven Kwan singled to lead off the fourth. On the fifth pitch of his at-bat, Ramírez lined Burke’s knuckle-curve just over the wall near the right-field line for a 2-0 lead. The homer came on a pitch 0.74 feet above the ground, the lowest pitch hit for a postseason home run since tracking began in 2008 and the lowest Ramírez has hit in his 14-year big league career; it was his second straight game with a home run.
Cleveland’s pitching staff set a nine-inning postseason record for strikeouts and recorded the most strikeouts in any nine-inning regular- or postseason game since at least 1900, holding Chicago to three hits and only nine balls in play. Two days after saving Game 4, Williams became the third pitcher in postseason history to record the final out of a game and then start the next when his club faced elimination in both; he needed seven pitches in the first, struck out the side in the second and the fifth, and finished with 12 strikeouts that tied Cleveland’s single-game postseason mark set by Charles Nagy. After a walk loaded the bases, Erik Sabrowski relieved and struck out Munetaka Murakami on a foul tip; Hunter Gaddis got four outs and closer Cade Smith recorded his first career five-out save, striking out the side in the ninth and getting Tristan Peters to chase a 99.2 mph fastball for the final out as Progressive Field erupted. Cleveland pitchers amassed a Division Series record 75 strikeouts, Murakami and Andrew Benintendi struck out four times each, Kyle Teel and Chase Meidroth struck out three times apiece, and Smith and Gaddis became the 16th and 17th relievers to appear in all five games of a Division Series.