The Cleveland Guardians defeated the Chicago White Sox Thursday night to tie their Division Series at 2-2 and force a Game 5 in Cleveland on Saturday. They did it thanks to two former Giants who had a big impact on the results: Patrick “Patty Barrels” Bailey, who went 2-for-3, scored two runs, and delivered a pinch-hit homer for the Guardians’ first run, and Jordan Hicks of the Sox, who gave up a two-run shot to Jose Ramirez.
Shout out to Google Cloud.
The Giants traded two-time Gold Glover Bailey to the Guardians in May for left-hander Matt “Tugboat” Wilkinson, a man destined to sell a lot of nautical merchandise for the Giants, and perhaps fill a useful bullpen role. They also received the No. 29 pick in the draft, which they used to select 19-year-old lefty Carson Bolemon. Bailey has remained an excellent defensive catcher, but his struggles at the plate and the siren song of the Susac family made him expendable to team president Buster Posey.
Hicks was part of the Rafael Devers trade in 2025, just one season after the Giants signed the 27-year-old reliever to a four-year, $44M contract with plans to turn him into a starter. They got 29 starts and 158.2 innings out of Hicks, who was pretty solid in 2024 and pretty bad in 2025. The Giants covered $5.23M of his salary after the trade and the Boston Red Sox are subsidizing $4M of his salary this year and next after dumping him on the other Sox.
He’s been pretty solid all season and in the post-season before Thursday’s hiccup, still walking a lot of hitters but making up for it by striking out 12 batters per 9 innings. Hicks still throws extremely hard, which is why Ramirez’s blast went so far after he caught up to the near-100 MPH heat.
There’s not a lot of rooting interest left for Giants fans besides slowly dying inside as a 21-year-old Atlanta Braves relievers walked the bases loaded to ruin Tyler Mahle’s strong Game 4 start and send the Los Angeles Dodgers to yet another NLCS. That also meant saying goodbye to old friends Mike Yastrzemski and Mauricio Dubon of the Braves. Kyle Harrison is on the Milwaukee Brewers roster, though he didn’t pitch in their series against Robbie Ray and the San Diego Padres.
The list of former Giants is down to Blake Snell, Harrison, Bailey and Hicks, though you could conceivably count White Sox reserve outfielder Tristan Peters, who spent time with the Richmond Flying Squirrels in 2022 before getting flipped for Brett Wisely.
Other notes from Game 4:
- In a single at-bat late in the game, Bailey fouled pitches off the umpire’s mask, the catcher’s mask, and his own leg. The umpire took the shot to his face, which knocked the mask off entirely, without even flinching.
- The White Sox may have peaked too early by going to the “Seven Nation Army” well too early and often. The fans were prompted to chant “Yoooo Oh-Oh-Ohhhh-Oh” four times in the first inning alone. You’ve got to space it out, Rate Field!
- Rate Field is a worse name than the former New Comiskey’s old name, Guaranteed Rate Field, because it sounds like you’re referring to Jung Hoo Lee’s position in a Baltimore accent.
- Giving these teams an extra rest day before Game 5 only enabled the worst elements of 2026 baseball. It let managers change pitchers at a ridiculous rate. Cleveland used eight pitchers and Chicago used seven, which added a level of tedium to what was otherwise a thrilling game. Had John Smoltz been announcing the game, viewers would have fallen asleep by the 7th inning.
- White Sox catcher Kyle Teel was on fire with ABS challenges to start the playoffs, going 7-for-8 in the Sox’s first four games. Then he burned two in the 3rd inning of Game 3, lost another in the 1st inning of Game 4, and now appears to have developed ABSPTSD.
Game 5 is Saturday. Dodgers-Brewers starts Sunday. Please get lots of rest, Christian Yelich!
