The Guardians completed their epic series comeback on Saturday, winning Game 5 of the American League Division Series, 2-0 over the White Sox at Progressive Field, after losing the first two games.
The Guardians became the 11th team to lose the first two games of a best-of-five postseason series and then come back to win, and the first to do so since the 2017 Yankees, against Cleveland. They’re the fourth to do so after losing those first two at home.
How did they do it? It’s fair to say it boiled down to a tried and true formula in Cleveland: José Ramírez and great pitching.
Here’s a look at six stats and facts from Game 5.
• Cleveland pitchers struck out 21 batters on Saturday. That’s the most in a nine-inning postseason or regular-season game in MLB history. The prior most in a nine-inning postseason game was 19, in Game 3 of this series, also by the Guardians. The prior most in a regular-season game was 20, multiple times — most recently by Brewers pitchers on March 26, also against the White Sox.
• The Guardians’ staff finished the series with 75 strikeouts, the fourth most in a postseason series all time. But the three teams ahead of them on the list all did so in best-of-seven series that went the distance. Cleveland’s 75 strikeouts were 11 more than any other team in a best-of-five postseason series.
• Gavin Williams led the way with 12 strikeouts on Saturday. That tied Charles Nagy (1996 ALDS Game 4) for the most in a postseason game in franchise history. Williams also tied the Yankees’ Cam Schlittler (2025 AL Wild Card Series Game 3) for the second-most strikeouts by a pitcher in a postseason winner-take-all game, behind only Tarik Skubal’s 13 for the Tigers in Game 5 of last year’s ALDS.
• Williams finished the series with 24 strikeouts, the second most in a best-of-five postseason series, behind Gerrit Cole’s 25 for the Astros in the 2019 ALDS. Along the way, Williams became the third pitcher in postseason history to record the last out of a game and then start the next game while facing elimination in both, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. He joined the Cubs’ Hank Borowy (1945 World Series Games 6-7) and the Cubs’ Mordecai Brown (1910 World Series Games 4-5). Williams is the only one whose team won the second game.
• Ramírez provided the offense with a two-run homer on what he called a “home run pitch.” What does that mean in this case? It was just 0.74 feet above the ground, the lowest pitch he has homered on in his career, including playoffs, and the lowest pitch for a postseason homer in MLB under tracking (2008).
• Ramírez became the first Cleveland player to homer in consecutive postseason games since Francisco Lindor in 2018. And even more impactfully, he became the first Cleveland player to homer in consecutive postseason games while facing elimination in both. What a time to get going.