Will Venable’s ballclub proved him right on Wednesday in Game 3 of the American League Division Series, albeit not in a way he appreciated.
“Talked about this the whole series, that these guys are going to make you pay for walks,” Venable said postgame. “First couple games, they didn’t. But today, they did.”
After defying that axiom in a rocky first inning of their Game 2 win in Cleveland, the Sox and 40,590 supporters were dragged back to reality in a 9-3 blowout loss in Game 3. Sox pitching issued 10 free passes (one intentional) to Guardians hitters, while their hitters struck out 19 times; an MLB postseason record for a nine-inning game
“They just controlled the zone well,” said catcher Kyle Teel.
The Sox walked eight Guardians hitters in two games in Cleveland, and actually only three in Game 2. But Bryan Hudson and Hagen Smith combined for three in a four-run third alone, capped off by a bases-clearing Jo Adell triple that put the Guardians up for good.
“Just the pitching staff as a whole, minimizing walks and leadoff walks,” said Davis Martin–who issued two himself in the ninth–when asked what was missing from the Sox effort. “That [the Guardians’] lineup in general. They work hard [at-bats], they know the zone.”
Venable’s pre-series warning applied to not just walks, but allowing stolen bases and defensive misplays. All free bases yielded to the opponent needed to be trimmed from their diet.
Instead, the first of two Guardians stolen bases led to a run, with Jose Ramirez nabbing third after a one-out double in the fifth, allowing him to score on a hard grounder to Chase Meidroth. Playing from behind and not in position to deploy their best outfield defenders, Ramirez’s two-run bloop triple dropped beyond Randal Grichuk’s dive to put things out of reach in the eighth, before Miguel Vargas lost track of Brayan Rocchio’s pop behind third base to plate another run in the ninth.
“A lot of times during the year we lost tough games, and we bounced back the next day,” said Vargas. “That’s what we do.”
The Sox had no losing streaks longer than four, no winning streaks longer than five this year. With four playoff wins after winning their regular season finale, maybe they hit their cap and were due for their worst performance in weeks, unfortunately during the first home playoff crowd at Rate Field in five years.
“This is what we’ve been doing all year,” said Sean Newcomb, the only Sox pitcher who didn’t issue a walk over his two scoreless innings as opener.
But the longer this series stretches on, the trickier it becomes for the White Sox to navigate the Guardians’ starting pitching advantage. It was on display even with both sides running bullpen games on Wednesday, as All-Star left-hander Foster Griffin worked in bulk and recorded a Guardians’ record seven strikeouts as a reliever, and the Sox bullpen saw their control abandon them amid weeks of heavy use.
Of the five Sox pitchers on the ALDS roster who didn’t pitch Wednesday, two are high-leverage relievers (Grant Taylor and Jordan Hicks), two are starters who have only appeared in relief so far (Anthony Kay and Erick Fedde) and one is pretty essential to any Game 5 plans (Sean Burke). True to form, the Sox have not announced a Game 4 starter as of press time, and will likely be piecing things together as they go, figuring out which arms are available during pre-game catch play.
For their part, the Guardians are starting likely AL Cy Young finalist Parker Messick on regular rest.
“We’ve seen him a lot, I think that helps and our gameplan against him will be similar,” said outfielder Tristan Peters. “We’ve been resilient the whole season. Why can’t we do it now?”
No insurmountable reason comes to mind. But if they don’t, it’ll be hard to remember all the times they did.