Guardians Force ALDS Game 4: Cleveland's 9-3 Rout of the White Sox Sets Up a Win-or-Go-Home Thursday in Chicago

CHICAGO — They came to watch a sweep. Forty thousand five hundred ninety people packed Rate Field for the franchise’s first home playoff game since 2021, ready to watch the White Sox bury the Guardians and book their first ALCS trip since 2005. Instead, they got a 9-3 thumping, two triples in the record books, and a Thursday night that suddenly matters an awful lot more than anyone in that building expected.

The night belonged to Jo Adell, and it turned in the third inning. With two outs, the bases loaded, and Cleveland already up one, Adell smoked a bases-clearing three-run triple that opened the floodgates to a 4-1 Guardians lead. It was his second triple of the series — and it was the beginning of a night the franchise has never had before.

Because then José Ramírez did it again. His two-run triple in the eighth — driving in Travis Bazzana and Patrick Bailey to stretch the lead to 7-3 — made this the first game in Guardians franchise history with two triples in the postseason. No major league team had pulled that off since the Dodgers in Game 1 of the 2024 World Series. The rarest hit in baseball, twice, in one October night, from a team that needed every bit of it.

The way Cleveland built it was patience weaponized. The Guardians drew 10 walks, grinding down a Chicago staff that had been lights-out all series. Meanwhile the White Sox hitters struck out 19 times and went 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position — the kind of number that makes a 9-3 score feel almost generous. The White Sox bullpen, so steady through the first two games, finally cracked, and once it did there was no stopping the bleeding.

And then there was Foster Griffin, the reliever who became the story of the night out of nowhere. The right-hander came on in relief and carved through 2 2/3 innings with a franchise reliever-record 7 strikeouts — one run, two hits, and a win that will live in the Cleveland record books. It wasn’t supposed to be his night. October does that.

Chicago actually struck first, and for about twenty minutes the script was holding. Kyle Teel’s RBI double off Guardians starter Daniel Espino staked the Sox to a 1-0 lead in the first, and Rate Field shook. But Espino struck out Chase Meidroth, Griffin came on and struck out Tristan Peters looking with runners on second and third, and the threat died right there. It was, as it turned out, the high-water mark for the home team.

White Sox manager Will Venable wasn’t having any funeral talk afterward. “100% confidence,” he said after the loss. “We’ve been in tough spots... the story of our group is being able to bounce back.” He’s got a point — this is a team that won its first two ALDS games, and it’s still one win from the ALCS. The loss ended Chicago’s four-game postseason winning streak, but the dream is very much alive: win Thursday, and it’s the franchise’s first ALCS trip since 2005.

Now the series pivots to a Game 4 with real juice: Thursday night, 8pm ET (5pm PT), back at Rate Field, on TBS, truTV and HBO Max. Cleveland hands the ball to Parker Messick (12-9, 2.56 ERA) with its season on the line. Chicago counters with a gamble — 23-year-old southpaw Hagen Smith will open, with Grant Taylor expected to do the bulk work behind him. Smith has been nails this postseason — one run allowed over 6 1/3 innings — though he did throw 21 pitches in relief during Game 3. The market opened it as a coin flip tilted toward the visitors: Guardians -118, White Sox +100, total 7.5.

The stakes couldn’t be simpler. A White Sox win Thursday sends Chicago to the ALCS for the first time in 21 years. A Guardians win forces a winner-take-all Game 5. And whoever survives gets a date with the team nobody wants to see right now: the Tampa Bay Rays, who swept the Yankees 3-0 behind Victor Mesa Jr.’s 401-foot two-run homer off Max Fried in the sixth inning of Wednesday’s 4-3 clincher, reaching their first ALCS since 2020. The NLCS, meanwhile, is already set — Dodgers vs. Brewers, the rematch Milwaukee has been waiting a year for.

One night. One game. Either Chicago closes it out in front of another packed house, or Cleveland drags this thing back to a Game 5 nobody saw coming. The Guardians have played with house money since the first pitch of this series — and after Wednesday, the White Sox know exactly how dangerous that is. Read how Game 1 slipped away, the Rays’ sweep of the Yankees, how the Padres forced their own Game 4, and all of Previously’s MLB coverage.