CLEVELAND — In August 2022, then-White Sox general manager Rick Hahn was discussing the team’s lack of power when he summed up the effect the long ball can have.
“Ball goes far, team goes far,” he said.
The ball did not go far for the Sox that season. They finished 10th in the American League with 149 homers, 21 below the league average. They also finished 81-81 and missed the playoffs.
In 2026, the Sox hit 211 homers, the third-most homers in the league, went 84-78 and made the playoffs. Granted, it was a down year for the league, but the production helps prove a point. Let’s not nitpick here.
Home-run power carried the Sox’ offense this season. Munetaka Murakami (35), Miguel Vargas (33) and Colson Montgomery (31) each hit 30 homers, becoming the fourth trio in Sox history to do it and the first since 2008 — Carlos Quentin (36), Jermaine Dye (34) and Jim Thome (34).
But in the American League Division Series against the Guardians — which will conclude Saturday night with Game 5 — the Sox have a mere two home runs. Murakami hit a monster two-run homer in the fourth inning of Game 1 that led to a Sox victory, and Vargas hit a solo shot in a Game 4 loss with the Sox trailing by five in the ninth.
Where have all the homers gone?
“I think that we’re facing really good pitchers, No. 1,” Sox manager Will Venable said Friday before the team departed for Cleveland. “Whatever we want to say about some of the chase that we’ve seen, I think at the end of the day, we’re facing really good pitchers that are executing well, making it really hard for us, like they have all year.”
Indeed, against division opponents in the regular season, the Sox hit their fewest homers against the Guardians (16 in 13 games).
“You have to give those guys some credit,” Venable said. “Our hitters, you see some guys that are still in really good spots. We’ve had some good at-bats, just not the slug we’ve seen throughout the year. But in the playoffs, things are different.”
Boy, are they. On Thursday, the Sox faced eight pitchers, none for more than 2 ⅓ innings. In Game 3, Murakami faced four and Vargas five. In the series, Murakami has faced nine pitchers and Vargas 10. It’s all about matchups in the playoffs, and the Guardians are winning those.
“It is tough to face a lot of different pitchers,” the left-handed-hitting Tristan Peters, who has seen his share of lefties, said Thursday. “But at the same time, I think we’ve put some good at-bats together. We’re just going to have to grind through that.”
“I thought some at-bats we bounced back, had some good little runs there and just couldn’t get that big hit,” Chase Meidroth said. “But they’re a great pitching staff, so it’s not easy. It’s not easy against them ever.”
To be sure, Murakami and Vargas have been productive. Murakami has an .820 OPS, and Vargas is at 1.367. But the Sox’ overall OPS is .622, down more than 100 points from their regular-season mark of .726.
“We have to find different ways,” Venable said. “We’ve done a really good job — yesterday was a great example — of really grinding. We’re grinding offensively to do whatever we can to score runs, whether that’s via the homer or not.
The Guardians — who ranked 13th in home runs in the AL during the regular season with 162 — didn’t go deep in the series until Thursday, when Patrick Bailey and a rejuvenated Jose Ramirez homered. So after being separated by 49 homers over six months, the teams are even through four games. Such is playoff baseball.
“Obviously, slug has been part of our identity and something that we’ve done in the postseason,” said Venable, whose team hit two homers in the two-game wild-card series. “You have to find different ways. Pitchers are so good that you hope that you can get a guy on and hit one out of the ballpark. Hopefully that happens for us in Game 5.”
Righty Gavin Williams is set to start for the Guardians. He lasted a whopping five innings in Game 2, which the Sox rallied to win. Considering he also pitched the ninth inning Thursday, perhaps the Sox have gotten enough of a look at him to take advantage of him. But with 10 other guys ready to go, it might not matter.
As Venable said, the playoffs are different.
