Guardians 9, White Sox 5: Bailey's Pinch-Hit Homer Forces a Winner-Take-All Game 5

CHICAGO — The White Sox were nine outs from the ALCS. They led 2-0 into the fifth inning at Rate Field, the crowd was rocking, and the Guardians looked finished. Then Stephen Vogt sent up a pinch-hitter, Patrick Bailey turned on a pitch from Erick Fedde and sent it 376 feet down the right-field line at 110 mph — the hardest-hit ball of his career — and everything changed. Cleveland scored six in the sixth, won 9-5, and turned this ALDS into a one-game season.

Let's rewind, because the pitching story here is wild. Chicago started Hagen Smith, who had thrown two-thirds of an inning in Game 3, and he loaded the bases on three walks in the first before Will Venable pulled him for Fedde, who escaped the jam. Cleveland started rookie Parker Messick, who walked Munetaka Murakami with the bases loaded in the third to force in the first run — all four White Sox runs came via a bases-loaded walk, a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch, and two sacrifice flies, per USA TODAY's live coverage. Gritty, ugly, effective baseball.

The fifth inning changed everything

Bailey's pinch-hit homer cut it to 2-1. Jose Ramirez — who has been heating up after a brutal season — homered too, and the Guardians pushed a third run across to take a 3-2 lead. The White Sox answered right back in the bottom of the fifth: Sam Antonacci was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, Brenton Doyle followed with a sacrifice fly, and Chicago was back up 4-3. Rate Field was shaking.

Then the sixth. Oh, the sixth. Travis Bazzana tied it with an RBI double. Bailey, staying in the game after his heroics, added an RBI single. Ramirez, Chase DeLauter, and Jo Adell (two) all drove in runs. Six runs, and the lead, and the game. Grant Taylor, Chicago's workhorse reliever, took the brunt of it — four runs on four hits and two walks without recording an out. The Guardians led 9-4, and the air went out of the building.

The ninth got interesting, then it didn't

Miguel Vargas hit a solo homer in the ninth to make it 9-5, and the White Sox got two on with nobody out — for a second, the comeback was on. But Cleveland slammed the door, and Gavin Williams — the ace who had volunteered for bullpen duty before the game — closed it out. That's the kind of all-hands-on-deck move you make when your season is on the line, and it worked.

Context matters here: the White Sox took the first two games in Cleveland (3-0 and 4-3), then the Guardians took both in Chicago (9-3 in Game 3, 9-5 tonight). Since MLB went to the best-of-five Division Series in 1995, only seven teams have come back from 2-0 down. Cleveland is one win from becoming the eighth. And consider the arc: Chicago's young team admitted it was shook by the Game 3 atmosphere at home — manager Will Venable said as much before the game — and now the series goes back to Progressive Field, where the Guardians have the crowd and the momentum.

Ramirez's revival is one of the stories of this series. The seven-time All-Star endured a brutal 2026 — battling injuries, missing more games than in any season since 2015, and posting his lowest OPS (.688) in more than a decade with just 12 home runs in 125 games. He entered Game 3 hitless in the series, then flashed his old Silver Slugger form with a double, triple, two RBIs, and a stolen base — plus a diving, bases-loaded line-drive snag at third that saved the game. Thursday's homer was the continuation: the old Jose Ramirez is back at exactly the right time.

The all-hands-on-deck approach extended to the pitching. Gavin Williams — the Guardians' ace — had volunteered for bullpen duty before the game after leaving Game 2 with a lead the bullpen couldn't hold, and manager Stephen Vogt didn't hesitate to use him to close it out. The one arm Cleveland couldn't touch was Foster Griffin, who threw 53 pitches over 2⅔ innings in Game 3. Saturday's Game 5 will be about who has anything left — and right now, the Guardians have the momentum, the crowd, and the ace who already showed he'll pitch on guts.

One more thing, because it's too good to leave out: before first pitch, the White Sox honored Pope Leo XIV — the former Father Bob, who sat in Section 140, Row 19, Seat 2 for Game 1 of the 2005 World Series and now has a plaque on that seat. They held a Mass at Rate Field. The heavenly connection couldn't save Game 4. For more on the series, read our Game 4 preview and the Game 3 recap — and follow the sports hub for Saturday's winner-take-all.