Guards ride 6-run 6th to set up winner-take-all ALDS Game 5
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CHICAGO -- When the Guardians arrived here this week, facing postseason elimination against the White Sox in the American League Division Series, they knew what was awaiting them at Rate Field.
The Guardians were up against a team whose fanbase had waited a half-decade to witness postseason baseball. They were entering what everyone expected to be a hostile environment.
And they were looking forward to it.
“I always ask the players,” manager Stephen Vogt said this week. “‘What do you like better? Do you like to make 50,000 people go crazy, or do you like to shut 50,000 people up?’ They're both very different feelings, but they're equally as fun.”
The hushed silence that fell over Rate Field in the sixth inning on Thursday fell into the latter category. The Guardians beat the White Sox, 9-5, in Game 4 of the ALDS, riding a six-run sixth inning to force Game 5 on Saturday at Progressive Field.
The Guardians are one step away from an ALCS matchup with the Rays, after their odds to keep their season alive looked incredibly long just three days ago. Now, their chances amount to a coin flip.
Of the 18 previous teams to fall behind 2-0 in a best-of-five postseason series before rallying to win the next two games, 10 (56%) have proceeded to also win Game 5 and the series. In postseason history, teams playing winner-take-all games in their home ballpark have gone 70-68, including 19-22 in the Division Series.
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Cleveland sent 10 batters to the plate in the sixth after entering the inning down, 4-3. Angel Martínez sparked the rally with a hit by pitch and a stolen base, and scored on a Travis Bazzana RBI double just out of the reach of diving right fielder Braden Montgomery.
The next six batters reached: Patrick Bailey singled, Brayan Rocchio and Steven Kwan walked, and José Ramírez, Chase DeLauter and Jo Adell singled.
The six runs scored in the inning are tied for third most in a single inning in Cleveland franchise history, with Game 2 of the 1999 ALDS (third inning). It only trails the seven runs scored in Game 4 of the 2007 ALCS (fifth inning) and Game 2 of the same series (11th).
After the Guardians' 9-3 win in Game 3, this marks the second time in franchise history that Cleveland has scored nine runs in consecutive postseason games -- following Games 3 and 4 of the 1997 World Series.