In Los Angeles, they’re lining up multi-Cy Young Award winners and a World Series hero named Yoshinobu Yamamoto, ready to hang zeroes for the Dodgers. Over in the other dugout, Chris Salelurks, a future Hall of Famer giving the Atlanta Braves a chance.
In St. Petersburg, the visiting New York Yankees are so pitching-rich that Gerrit Cole didn’t even need to pitch in the wild-card round, while he and presumed Cy Young winner Cam Schlittler will square off against a pair of Tampa Bay Rays All-Stars in Games 1 and 2 of their American League Division Series.
In Milwaukee, The Miz towers over this entire postseason, a 6-7 fireballer who has learned to stretch his 102-mph Dairyland cheese across six innings.
And in Cleveland, the American League strikeout
leader and a dominant rookie left-hander made the Guardians prohibitive favorites in their ALDS.
The Chicago White Sox also showed up. With five relievers in a trench coat, impersonating a starting pitcher.
And the formula remains perfect so far in this postseason.
Forget the Pope. Papal power is no match for one booming home run from Munetaka Murakami and a fantastic pitching plan, executed perfectly by manager Will Venable. And in Game 1 of this ALDS Saturday, Oct. 3 at Cleveland’s Progressive Field, the White Sox showed they were for real-for real in this playoff field, recording a 3-0 victory over their Central rival Guardians.
This was a fantastic ballgame, befitting a pennant race that saw the 85-77 Guardians eke ahead of the 84-win White Sox at the end.
No biggie. The White Sox lost 121 games just two years ago, 102 last year. Now?
It feels like anything’s possible.
How could it not? This game ended with Grant Taylor, the White Sox’s sometimes-closer who never pitched more than 2⅔ innings this season, logging a four-inning save, striking out six and walking nobody.
The White Sox have now played three playoff games. They have never trailed. Nor has one of their starting pitchers recorded more than 12 outs.
Their winning pitchers? Relievers Jordan Hicks, Anthony Kay and Bryan Hudson, two of them earning Ws thanks to “scorer’s discretion.”
And why not? Hudson was the winner Saturday simply by recording the final out of the third inning, bailing starter (or, “starter”) Hagen Smith out of a bases-loaded jam. Biggest moment of the game, or at least it was until moments later, when Murakami destroyed a Messick pitch, sending it 440 feet into the Progressive Field right field seats. If anyone still doubted Murakami after his 35-homer season, 112 mph off the bat will, in fact, play.
Then again, you can’t shortchange what Taylor did. He won seven games and saved 10 this season, at least until the White Sox figured out his ability to punch dudes out (11.4 per nine innings) qualified him for “whenever we need him most” duty.
Saturday, that moment came in the sixth inning, when Venable handed him the ball and a 2-0 lead. He never gave it back.
“Incredible. Grant has been our guy the entire year,” Venable said in his postgame press conference in Cleveland. “We go into that one not expecting four innings from him.
“But he was just so efficient, kept going, wanted the ball in the ninth there. Just weren’t comfortable with the cushion to go elsewhere. But he wanted the ball. He was efficient.
“I don’t know what else to say about him. He’s a beast out there. Some incredible stuff from Grant.”
As the game reached the top of the ninth, Taylor told reporters, he did not get a look from Venable that said, “you’re done.” So he went into the tunnel. Pitching coach Zach Bove came down and a wordless exchange ensued.
Bove gave him a look that Taylor says means, “How do you feel? What do you got?”
Taylor nodded. And finished the game.
“I think that’s the mentality – this is my game, while I’m on the mound,” says Taylor. “My job, at this point, is to go as deep as they let me and hand it off to the next guy.”
The next guy – Sean Newcomb, in this case – was never needed. And that brings us to the Game 2 pitching plan.
Predictably, Venable has an idea but nothing concrete. Sean Burke, their most starter-ish starting pitcher, will figure in; he ate up four innings in Game 2 of the wild-card series.
And this might concern the Guardians: The ALDS has a day off between Games 1 and 2, a wrinkle that’s supposed to benefit the team with superior starting pitching, what with two horses able to pitch Games 1 and 2 and then 4 and 5, if needed.
Yet this day off will allow the White Sox bullpen to reload. Taylor threw 42 pitches; it’d be yeoman’s work if he raised his hand again come Monday.
And there’s still the question of whether this is sustainable. October is just beginning. Diminishing returns from bullpens are littered through postseason history.
The White Sox can’t worry about that. This unpredictable ride wasn’t even supposed to happen. And the White Sox are getting by just fine, proving that just a little is more than enough.
“If we score one run,” Murakami said through his interpreter, “I have confidence we can win the game.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How dynamite Chicago White Sox have stayed perfect in MLB playoffs
