Guardians must turn on power, lean on stars in Game 3
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CHICAGO -- The Guardians’ backs are against the wall. But even as they face postseason elimination, they have some life heading into Game 3 of the American League Division Series against the White Sox on Wednesday.
This is a win-or-go-home situation for Cleveland, and Chicago’s Rate Field is expected to have a raucous atmosphere for a White Sox team that is on the precipice of an AL Championship Series berth. The Guardians have a lot of work to do. It starts with Wednesday.
“You can focus on the fact that we have to win three games, or you could focus on we need to win tomorrow,” manager Stephen Vogt said Tuesday in Chicago. “That's how we've approached it and how we're going to continue to approach it.
“We have one game tomorrow. That's all we can control. We're going to do everything we can to go out and win it.”
What will it take? Here are some keys.
Kwan setting the table
The Guardians obviously need their offense to produce at a much higher clip than Games 1 and 2, when they tallied three runs and went 7-for-61 with eight walks and 21 strikeouts. That’s a given. More specifically, we can point to leadoff man Steven Kwan paving the way.
It’s no coincidence that the Guardians had an uptick in production over the final few months of the regular season, while Kwan surged after a dismal first half. From Aug. 1 onward, Cleveland ranked sixth in MLB in runs scored (245) and ninth in OPS (.737). Kwan’s revival began in the weeks prior; he led the Majors in batting average (.353) after the All-Star break.
The Guardians’ most productive inning this series began with Kwan. He hit a leadoff single in Game 2, and Cleveland scored twice in the first inning to take a 2-0 lead.
Turn on the power
The Guardians aren’t built on slug. No player who began 2026 in a Cleveland uniform hit 20 home runs in the regular season. (Trade Deadline acquisition Jo Adell hit 23 in 159 games between the Angels and Guardians.) But this lineup has some pop, between Adell, José Ramírez, Angel Martínez, Chase DeLauter, Travis Bazzana and Nathaniel Lowe, among others.
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Postseason games often come down to the long ball. Munetaka Murakami’s two-run homer loomed large for the White Sox in their 3-0 win in Game 1. Adell just missed belting a game-tying two-run shot in the eighth inning of Game 2. He hit a fly ball high off Progressive Field’s 19-foot wall in left field, and the projected 413-foot drive would have been a homer in 19 ballparks, according to Statcast.
Who knows how Game 2 would have ended if that drive sailed into the seats? The Guardians would have been in a much different spot if so. Can anyone deliver some instant offense in Game 3?
Battle of the openers
The White Sox have had the Guardians searching for answers this series behind an unorthodox pitching plan featuring starting pitchers covering multiple innings in relief following an opener. Cleveland will give that strategy a run in Game 3.
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Daniel Espino will start Game 3 as an opener, while the White Sox will turn to lefty Sean Newcomb. Each team should have a full assortment of pitchers available following Tuesday’s off-day.
The Guardians have not mapped out who will follow Espino. It could be a starter such as Tanner Bibee, Foster Griffin or Joey Cantillo, who worked behind the 25-year-old as a bulk reliever three times in September. Vogt could turn to a reliever after Espino, then to one of the starters.
Vogt said throughout the regular season that the key to facing a bullpen game is disrupting one of the pitchers in the chain. The Guardians scored twice off lefty Anthony Kay and Newcomb in Game 2, but had the opportunity for more. Can they break out in Game 3?
Ramírez finds a way
Ramírez has been giving the Guardians everything he has while dealing with the impact of left hamate surgery in June. He has not been his typical self this season, and went 0-for-6 with two walks and three strikeouts across Games 1 and 2.
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Ramírez won’t be 100 percent again until 2027. But he’s shown flashes this season post-surgery and even while struggling offensively, he can impact a game with his baserunning.
Ramírez finding a way, in some form, in Game 3 would be pivotal.
“There's no secret it's been a struggle,” Ramírez said of the team-wide offensive struggles, through interpreter Agustin Rivero. “As we say, it's one day at a time. Who knows, tomorrow we start. We start exploding, being more aggressive offensively, and then everything changes.
“But for us, it's one game at a time”