White Sox manager Will Venable’s ballclub proved him right on Wednesday in Game 3 of the American League Division Series, albeit not in a way he’s likely to appreciate.
He warned before the series that if his team gave away extra bases to a pesky Guardians team that runs the bases well, they would lose. After sharply defying that axiom in the beginning of their Game 2 win in Cleveland, the Sox and 40,590 ardent supporters were dragged back to reality in a 9-3 home loss in Game 3.
Sox pitching issued nine walks to just six strikeouts, including three free passes in a disastrous four-run third that turned a roaring sellout crowd into a very large collection of people in black clothing making anxious noises.
The owner of a 6.15 ERA after the All-Star break, Bryan Hudson retired just one of the four hitters he faced, with the lone out coming via a Patrick Bailey lineout. Entering after Steven Kwan had already erased an early 1-0 Sox lead with an RBI single, Hagen Smith was rolled out to stop the bleeding four days after getting eight outs to start Game 1.
Instead, the Sox got a version of Smith akin to the guy who walked the bases loaded at the end of that outing. He walked Jose Ramirez to load the bases before getting Chase DeLauter to bounce into a forceout at home. After threatening the Sox lead with an RBI triple late in Game 2, Jo Adell put the Guardians up for good by bouncing a 1-2 fastball down the right field line for a bases-clearing three-bagger on Wednesday.
Cleveland would insurance runs in the fifth, eighth and ninth, all enabled by free bases. Ramirez led off the fifth inning with a double off Noah Schultz before stealing third, and racing home on a DeLauter bouncer to second before a drawn-in Chase Meidroth could get the ball home. He victimized the Sox once more in the eighth, kickstarted by a leadoff walk from David Sandlin before a soft single from Bailey put a second runner on. With his team an out away from coming up empty, Ramirez dropped a bloop two-run triple just beyond the grasp of a diving Randal Grichuk, extinguishing most notions of a Sox comeback.
Davis Martin made his postseason debut in the ninth inning of a game that already had slipped away, issuing a pair of walks that both came around to score, as the Sox defense floundered and allowed a Brayan Rocchio pop to land in short left to plate a run. That effort had a way of emptying out the crowd.
In an afternoon defined by factors the Sox defied in the first two games rearing their heads, the Guardians pitching staff had the fourth-highest strikeout rate in MLB this year, while Sox hitters had the third-highest. Those forces combined to mute the home team’s offensive efforts.
An early opportunity to break the game open in the first when three of the first four Sox hitters reached, the last of which being a Kyle Teel RBI double, was held at one run by strikeouts. Foster Griffin’s inning-ending strikeout of Tristan Peters was the first of a Guardians postseason franchise record seven punchouts in a relief appearance. The Sox struck out 19 times in all, including both Colson and Braden Montgomery when the Sox were held to a single run after Meidroth and Peters led off the fourth with doubles.
And then there was just rotten luck. Teel ripped a 100 mph liner to right with two runners on and one out in the fifth, only for Guardians second baseman Travis Bazzana to make a leaping catch on his liner and double off Miguel Vargas at second to end the threat.
Vargas had a chance at redemption with two outs and the bases loaded in the sixth, after Antonacci had just forced a run home by taking a slider off his foot. The Sox All-Star third baseman rallied from down 0-2 before rifling a full-count Hunter Gaddis heater toward the six-hole, but Ramirez knocked it down. Even without catching it cleanly, the Guardians venerable third baseman scrambled to his feet and uncorked a clean throw to first in time to stave off disaster.
Somewhere in that moment, was a metaphor for this ALDS as it heads to a Game 4 on Thursday.
