Guardians Game 5: Cleveland Forces a Winner-Take-All

The Guardians Game 5 showdown against the Chicago White Sox tonight in Cleveland is the kind of winner-take-all baseball that makes October feel unfair and perfect at the same time. Cleveland was down two games to none, and now one night decides who heads to Tampa Bay for the American League Championship Series.

According to AP coverage on CBS Sports, the Guardians beat Chicago nine to five on Thursday night, riding a six-run sixth inning to force the decider. Game 5 is Saturday night at Progressive Field, and the winner opens the ALCS against the rested Rays on Monday.

How Cleveland Clawed Back

The Guardians opened the series with two straight home losses, then won twice in Chicago, including a nine to three win on Wednesday. Thursday looked shaky early, as the White Sox jumped ahead two to nothing. Then the fifth inning flipped everything.

Pinch-hitter Patrick Bailey led off with a homer. Later, Jose Ramirez crushed a fastball clocked at 99.9 mph to right-center, according to AP. Chicago answered with two runs to retake a four to three lead, and the sixth is where the game got away from them.

Cleveland sent ten batters to the plate in that frame, as ESPN reported. Travis Bazzana tied it with a double, Bailey added a run-scoring single, and Ramirez pushed the lead with an infield single. Jo Adell then capped it with a two-run liner to right.

Jose Ramirez, Playoff Menace

Ramirez finished with a homer and three RBIs. It was just his second home run since September first, a stretch of twenty-six games, and AP notes he had surgery after breaking a bone in his left hand in June. The seven-time All-Star says the team simply refuses to quit.

"What this team is doing is only what we know how to do," Ramirez said, per ESPN. Manager Stephen Vogt put it more bluntly: "We talk about it - we punch back." Honestly, that is a pretty good motto for anyone living through a rough week.

The Bullpen Math Gets Wild

Both managers burned through fifteen pitchers over nine innings, ESPN reported. Rookie Parker Messick lasted only two and a third innings, the shortest start of his career, so Vogt had to improvise. Gavin Williams, the probable Game 5 starter, even came out of the bullpen to get the final three outs.

That matters tonight. Williams threw eighteen pitches on Thursday after throwing ninety-eight on Monday, and he led the American League with two hundred forty-eight strikeouts this season. Chicago has the opposite problem: ESPN research says its starters have logged just twelve and two-thirds innings, the fewest through a team's first six playoff games in history.

History Is Not On Cleveland's Side

Here is the scary part for Guardians fans. According to AP, teams leading two to nothing in a best-of-five series have gone on to win eighty-three of ninety-three times. Cleveland would be the first club to come back from that hole since the 2017 Yankees, who did it against, well, Cleveland.

ESPN also notes Cleveland is two and nine all-time in win-or-go-home games. The White Sox, meanwhile, have never played such a game in a multigame series. They missed a chance to clinch at home for the first time since the 1906 World Series, and the road team has won all four games so far.

What To Watch Tonight

Every Guardians Game 5 storyline comes back to pitching. Cleveland used seven relievers on Thursday, and Chicago used its high-leverage arms hard, so both bullpens will be running on fumes. Expect managers to pull starters quickly, because there is no tomorrow to save arms for.

Closer Cade Smith gave up Miguel Vargas' first postseason homer and a leadoff walk in the ninth, so the late innings could get tense. Chicago's relief ace Grant Taylor, who threw five and a third scoreless innings earlier in the series, failed to retire a batter on Thursday. Whether he bounces back may decide this thing, and it is why this Guardians Game 5 feels so unpredictable. The ALCS prize is a trip to face Tampa Bay, who swept the Yankees in three games.

Rookie Sam Antonacci, hit by pitches thirty-three times this year, also keeps finding chaos. The wild part is how little separates these teams. Cleveland drew seventeen walks across the two Chicago games while its pitchers piled up thirty-one strikeouts to Chicago's nine, and still the series is tied. Plan your Saturday night around the Guardians Game 5 first pitch at eight o'clock Eastern. Catch more of our sports coverage while you wait for the first pitch.