With a stunning nighttime introduction sequence that whipped 39,920 in attendance into a frenzy, the White Sox seemed to feed off their crowd for much of Game 4, rather than be sped up by it.
With patient approaches, their lineup ground up Guardians ace Parker Messick and knocked him out of the game after he recorded just seven outs on 65 pitches, departing after his fourth walk of the night pushed across the game’s first run. Sox hitters worked seven walks in all, loading the bases and manufacturing runs to take leads in the third and fifth.
They couldn’t hold either of them, lost 9-4 as the Guardians ran up a six-run sixth inning on Anthony Kay and Grant Taylor, and will be heading back to Cleveland for a climactic Game 5 on Saturday.
Including the regular season, the Sox have a 9-8 lead in the head-to-head matchup. But if they drop the finale in Cleveland, it’s pretty clear that the tie will go to the team advancing. With Game 5 still on the schedule and staff ace Sean Burke at the ready for it–though he was in the bullpen when his team still led in the middle innings–it’s too soon to say that the White Sox have run out of pitching. But if they did, it’s hard to imagine how it would look different.
Rookie Hagen Smith once more flashed remarkable swing-and-miss stuff. But in pitching for the third time this series, he couldn’t finish the first inning after walking the bases loaded and required rescue from Erick Fedde to escape.
Effectively working as the bulk arm for the night, Fedde was bordering on folk hero status as he weathered some scary lineouts to hold the Guardians scoreless until the fifth. But a Patrick Bailey solo shot halved an early 2-0 Sox lead. When he allowed a single to leadoff man Steven Kwan, Will Venable opted for Jordan Hicks rather than let Fedde face Jose Ramirez a second time, only to watch the Guardians third baseman lace a letter-high triple-digit heater for a go-ahead two-run shot.
Anthony Kay had been effective against the Guardians throughout the season, but he also plunked an MLB-leading 26 batters, and the latter quality won out as he nailed Angel Martinez with a sweeper with one out in the sixth. When Travis Bazzana’s sinking flare to right eluded Braden Montgomery’s diving effort, it erased the brief 4-3 lead the Sox had re-taken, and prompted Venable to bring out his bullpen super weapon Grant Taylor to keep the game in hand.
But Taylor, ridden to unseen lengths in the opening games of each round of the playoffs, has not mystified Guardians hitters since twirling four scoreless innings at Progressive Field on Saturday. He sat 98 mph, only one of the four hits he allowed would qualify as “hard-hit” by MLB’s definition, but he faced six batters and retired none.
The stadium didn’t empty out immediately afterward, but the knockout blow had been landed. A Miguel Vargas solo shot off Guardians All-Star closer Cade Smith in the ninth prompted Cleveland to bring potential Game 5 starter Gavin Williams out of the bullpen, but that’s a concern for Saturday.