Three of the four Division Series are over. The Los Angeles Dodgers advanced in four games, despite losing one at home. The Tampa Bay Rays advanced by sweeping the New York Yankees yesterday. The Milwaukee Brewers and Padres played four great games, but San Diego ultimately fell short, losing 3-1. That sets up another National League Championship Series between the Brewers and Dodgers.
The Rays are awaiting their opponent, and it could be the Chicago White Sox if they win today, or we will get a Game 5 against the Cleveland Guardians on Saturday.
The Guardians finally broke out their bats yesterday. In Game 1, they were shut out. In Game 2, they gave up the lead, but at least they scored three runs. In Game 3, the team put nine runs on the board and spoiled the White Sox playoff home debut. The bigger question for them now is how they can get it done again. The Guardians did have a slightly better batting average and slightly more hits than the White Sox in the regular season, so they are technically a better-hitting team, but the White Sox scored 98 more runs than Cleveland. They also hit almost 50 fewer homers.
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If the Guardians can find a way to keep the White Sox from putting balls over the fence, they might be able to win this one. In order to do that, they are sending Parker Messick to the mound. He had a great season, going 12-9 with a 2.56 ERA and a 1.06 WHIP. He started the first game of the series and lost the game. He went 4.1 innings and allowed two earned runs on four hits, two walks, and six strikeouts. In two starts on the road against the Sox this season, Messick allowed four earned runs over 14.2 innings of work.
The White Sox are still up in the series and really don’t have any pressure. If they don’t win this game, and if they don’t win this series, the season will still be viewed as a massive success. If they do fail to win or close this out, most will point to the team being young and inexperienced. However, the real blame probably needs to be placed on the fact that this team has very little pitching. That is going to be an issue for closing out this series as well.
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Teams get familiar with the arms over the course of a series, and with so many matchups being figured out, hitters start to see tendencies from the pitchers. The White Sox are opening with Hagen Smith, who has pitched twice already in this series. To the point about hitters figuring out tendencies, Smith allowed a run over 0.2 innings of work yesterday. That was his first run allowed in the postseason. The White Sox will need him to keep a clean sheet and figure out how to stop the Guardians here. It will be an all-hands-on-deck situation.
Messick does give the Guardians an advantage in this game. Starters only throw for three innings in the postseason, typically. However, Messick is one who could go a bit longer. The White Sox should be a little more comfortable and settled in today. The team will get another crowd ready to explode, but that might’ve been a distraction yesterday. It shouldn’t today. I think this game goes over seven runs, and I think the Guardians will push it to five games. I’ll split a unit on the plays.
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