CLEVELAND — In a pre-series scrum with White Sox beat writers last weekend, manager Will Venable warned that if the Sox yielded extra bases against the pesky American League Central-champion Guardians — be it through walks, errors or stolen bases — they’d lose.
By the time reliever Sean Newcomb’s throw to first skipped away in the first inning, allowing the Guardians to score two runs, the Sox had allowed the first two things to happen with only one out. It was yet another logical reason to expect them to come up short — or to fall back into the grim reality that defined most of their previous five years.
Instead, all the trouble melted away in a 4-3 victory in Game 2 of the ALDS.
When Brenton Doyle leaped at the wall to catch Patrick Bailey’s deep drive to center off Sox reliever Grant Taylor to end the game, the Sox were up 2-0 in the series, headed home for the first playoff game at Rate Field in five years and just one victory away from their first ALCS in 21 years.
“This is the identity of this team,” said infielder Miguel Vargas, who singled and scored in a decisive three-run sixth. “We know anybody here can have a huge at-bat and put us in the lead.”
Outfielder Braden Montgomery, a 2024 first-round draft pick by the Red Sox and a top-100 prospect, isn’t the most unlikely postseason hero after his two-out, two-run, go-ahead double off Guardians lefty Erik Sabrowski put the Sox up for good in the sixth. But Venable acknowledged before the game that Montgomery was a likely candidate to be replaced by a pinch-hitter against a left-hander after managing just a .430 OPS against lefties in the regular season.
Nevertheless, Montgomery prepared for Sabrowski like always and hit a first-pitch fastball down the right-field line in the sixth for one of the biggest Sox’ hits in years.
“He’s probably in the cage almost longer than anyone else,” Doyle said. “He really gives a crap about this game.”
It seemed questionable that Taylor would be available to pitch at all after logging four dominant innings to close out Game 1. As it turns out, he was slated to pitch one inning for a save if the situation came up, and he went one out longer than even that.
Three of his four outs were loud fly outs, wrapped around a booming triple by Joe Adell that reduced the Sox’ lead to a run. But style points aren’t what players concern themselves with in the playoff. Neither are whatever expectations this Sox team used to have.
A little over a year ago, Sean Burke was demoted to Triple-A Charlotte off a much weaker Sox roster. But on Monday, with midges swirling in the stadium in Cleveland, he picked up a game that threatened to spin out of control in the first and carried it until there were two outs in the eighth. He was pulled then after allowing his first hit in 5⅓ innings.
“I never thought the opponent would get a hit,” Sox slugger Munetaka Murakami boasted through his interpreter.
The Sox could have called an 84-win season a success without reaching the playoffs. Now they’re a win away from one of their deepest runs in franchise history. With a 36-45 road record this year, the Sox once looked like a team that needed their home environment to be successful. But four road playoff victories later, that has proven to be another misconception, another set of limitations to which the youngest group of position players in the league is not beholden.
For that, the young Sox have a hero’s welcome awaiting them in Chicago.
“I can’t place any expectations on it — I just know it’s going to be special,” Montgomery said of returning to their home field for Game 3 on Wednesday. “I can only imagine how the South Side is going to pop out in a couple of days. I can’t wait to see it and be a part of it.”