Storylines to follow as Guards, White Sox take center stage for Game 4

The Tampa Bay Rays finished off a three-game sweep of the New York Yankees on Wednesday night, clinching the third trip to the American League Championship Series in franchise history. And now they just get to kick back and wait to see who will be flying south to Florida for Game 1 of the ALCS, which is set for Monday night. They get to be just like they rest of us: They just get to watch.

Will that opponent be the Guardians or the White Sox? Here are three key questions for their AL Division Series Game 4 matchup on Thursday night.

Guardians at White Sox (CWS ahead 2-1)
8 p.m. ET, TBS/HBO Max
SP: Parker Messick (CLE) vs. Hagen Smith (CWS)

Hey, is José Ramírez back?

As pleasant as this season has been for the Guardians -- and don’t forget this is the No. 2 seed in the American League that won its third consecutive AL Central title -- it has been mostly a year to forget for Ramírez. The likely future Hall of Famer and Guardians legend, a guy who will have a statue outside Progressive Field if he can win a title with this team, and honestly maybe even if he doesn’t, has struggled with injuries all season and has not looked like himself since having left hamate surgery in June. (It is absolutely wild to see José Ramírez with a .368 regular-season SLG.) Heading into Game 3, he was 0-for-6 this series and keeping his No. 2 spot in the lineup more out of inertia and respect than anything else.

And then Ramírez went out and won Game 3 for the Guardians. He went 2-for-4 with a double, a triple, two RBIs, two runs scored and a stolen base, and he looked absolutely electrifying doing so, even making a terrific, and important, defensive play in the sixth. He looked like the Guardians legend he is. Both he and the Guardians are up front about the fact that he won’t be fully healed and fully himself until 2027. But the guy he was Wednesday night is exactly what the Guardians have been waiting for, and exactly what they need to come all the way back in this series.

Is Chicago’s ‘Johnny Wholestaff?’ plan in danger?

The White Sox came into Wednesday as the first team in MLB history to win their first four postseason games without having any starting pitcher throw more than four innings. They received much praise for this, and there were all sorts of declarations about how this is just how postseason baseball will be played now, how the White Sox represented the future.

Then Game 3 happened and everyone was reminded how handy having real starting pitchers can be. Sean Newcomb threw two scoreless innings, but when Bryan Hudson entered in the third inning, everything blew up. Hudson gave up three runs and was one of five White Sox relievers to give up runs in a game that kept getting further and further away as the innings piled up. The Sox ended up using seven pitchers on the night, which is as many as the Guardians did, but the difference is that the Guardians have Messick coming out for Game 4, and the White Sox have … Smith as an opener, after he threw 21 pitches in Game 3.

Can the White Sox crowd keep this series from flipping?

Boy, was it all set up for the White Sox heading into Game 3. They had won four straight postseason games, including two to start the ALDS, putting them just one game away from their first ALCS since 2005. Their home crowd, in what was clearly the biggest game at the stadium since that 2005 World Series, was vibrating from the first pitch -- probably before. All they had to do was beat the Guardians, the team they’ve been evenly matched with all season, one more time.

And then in the third inning, it all went haywire. Down 1-0, the Guardians scored four runs and took control of the game. The Rate Field crowd stopped being much of a factor … and dwindled more and more as the Guardians added to their lead. With that 9-3 loss in Game 3, what was the ideal situation for the White Sox -- winning two games on the road to start, with the long-suffering fans ready to collectively run through a collective wall -- became something that’s suddenly quite stressful.

The White Sox, with their diminished pitching staff, now have to face one of the Guardians’ two top-tier pitchers in Messick, in front of a crowd that is going to be extremely nervous. Lose Thursday, and they head back to Cleveland to face a team, and a fanbase, that will feel like they’ve avoided the reaper -- that they’re back in charge. Win Thursday, though? Well, that’ll be a night no one on the South Side will ever forget.