White Sox special season ends with defeat in Game 5 of ALDS
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CLEVELAND -- An unexpected but highly entertaining 2026 White Sox season came to a close in the American League Division Series with a 2-0 loss to Cleveland in Game 5 on Saturday night at Progressive Field. The Guardians won the series, 3-2, coming back to win the final three after losing the first two at home.
It was a strange ending for the White Sox, who never lost more than four in a row all season and only hit that mark twice. They lost three in a row on nine different occasions following Saturday’s loss.
It was too much Gavin Williams for the White Sox, who came back to start Game 5 after throwing 18 pitches in the ninth inning Thursday to close out Game 4 at Rate Field. He struck out 12 over 5 2/3 innings in Game 5 and did not allow a hit until Kyle Teel’s single to right field with two outs in the sixth.
A walk to Miguel Vargas loaded the bases with two outs for the White Sox later in the sixth, but Erik Sabrowski struck out Munetaka Murakami on five pitches.
The White Sox struck out 21 times by the end of the night, the most all-time in a nine-inning postseason or regular-season game.
White Sox right-hander Sean Burke wasn’t quite as effective as Williams, yielding two runs over five innings. Those two came on a José Ramírez home run in the fourth on a pitch he basically took off the ground.
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The White Sox reached the Division Series with a two-game sweep of the Astros in the AL Wild Card Series. The South Siders reached the postseason by earning the AL’s third Wild Card spot, and in the process, the No. 6 seed.
Even with the hope of improvement, nobody thought the team with 100-plus losses in each of its last three seasons could make this sort of pronounced jump. But the White Sox are now 0-2 all-time in series-deciding playoff contests, having lost Game 3 in Oakland during the 2020 season.