In the end, the 2026 White Sox's postseason lived and died like the 2026 regular season, with a surprising over-.500 record overshadowed by the Cleveland Guardians coming from behind to clip them.
Over the first six months, the White Sox shocked baseball with an 84-78 record and the third wild card spot, but it was diminished by the fact that they led the AL Central by three games at the start of September, but couldn't seal the deal.
In October, the White Sox won their first playoff series since 2005 and finished the postseason having won more games than they lost, but they suffered all three of those losses after leading the Guardians 2-0, and thus they lost the ALDS.
At least they picked a straightforward manner in which to lose it. After setting the nine-inning postseason strikeout record with 19 K's in Game 3, they topped that total by two tonight, striking out 21 times against Gavin Williams and three Cleveland relievers. That rendered moot an outstanding pitching performance from Sean Burke and two White Sox relievers, who committed the apparently unpardonable sin of throwing José Ramírez's a curveball that didn't bounce.
Burke retired the first nine batters he faced, but Steven Kwan foiled the no-hit bid with a single to open the fourth, which brought Ramírez to the plate. The White Sox weren't going to pitch to Ramírez if they didn't have to, but in the fourth inning of a scoreless game and first base occupied, it made sense to tread carefully.
And Burke did. He threw his first five pitches at the top of the zone or higher, alternating balls and strikes to get to a 2-2 count. On the fifth pitch, he succeeded in throwing a curve well below the zone to change eye levels, yet it was an extremely unsuccessful pitch. Somehow, Ramírez lowered the barrel without dragging it in the dirt, picked it off the front of the plate and lofted it over the right-field wall for two-run homer that had no recent precedent. The pitch doesn't even show up in the cropped Gameday screenshot.
José Ramírez!!
— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) October 11, 2026
This pitch was 0.74 ft above the ground
That is:
-lowest pitch he’s homered on in his career, including playoffs
-lowest pitch for a postseason homer in MLB under tracking (2008) https://t.co/FXRaMWEvCh
That turned out to be all the scoring, and on a pitch that couldn't be called a mistake.
On the White Sox's side, the run prevention unit was otherwise excellent. Tristan Peters and Chase Meidroth teamed up for a perfect relay that cut down Petey Halpin trying to stretch a double into a triple to help Burke close out a scoreless fifth in his final inning of work, Sean Newcomb handled the sixth and seventh without issue, and even though he gave up a leadoff double to Halpin in the eighth, Grant Taylor helped strand the runner.
They didn't allow either of their two walks until the eighth, but they benefited Taylor. After Brayan Rocchio grounded out to move Halpin to third, Taylor walked Kwan unintentionally, then Ramírez intentionally to set up the force at any base. Venable called the infield in, and it worked when Chase Meidroth cut down Halpin on a Chase DeLauter chopper over the mound for the second out. Taylor then fed Jo Adell a steady diet of sliders around one show-me fastball, and one of those breaking balls produced a routine groundout to third to leave them loaded.
None of it mattered, though, because the White Sox couldn't hit. Despite having gotten plenty of exposure to every pitcher Stephen Vogt threw at them, they struck out 21 times against six baserunners, and all of them single-base plate appearances (three singles, two walks, one HBP).
Gavin Williams did experience his typical arc against the White Sox, where he mows them down until the sixth inning rolls around. He'd struck out 11 batters over his first five innings, but he opened the sixth plunking Colson Montgomery on the foot on an 0-2 sweeper, and that was the first crack in the hull. He struck out Brenton Doyle to turn over the lineup and got Sam Antonacci to fly out, but Kyle Teel kept the inning alive with the first White Sox hit of the game, and Miguel Vargas walked on five pitches to load the bases.
With Munetaka Murakami coming to the plate, Vogt called for lefty Erik Sabrowski, and he ended up striking out Murakami on five fastballs and hopping off the mound with a roar.
From there, the White Sox got the tying run to the plate a couple times, but not in a compelling manner. Peters blooped a single to right off Hunter Gaddis with one out in the seventh, but Meidroth and Montgomery struck out. Antonacci's one-out single in the eighth prompted Cade Smith's entry, but that didn't help. Smith fell behind Teel 2-0 before a challenge fastball and hanging splitter evened the count, and a good splitter put him away. Vargas, who homered off Smith in the ninth inning on Thursday, had a chance to be the hero, but popped out on a fastball.
In the ninth, Smith tied history by striking out Murakami, set a new nine-inning record by blowing away Andrew Benintendi, and punctuated the effort by fanning Peters to cap off the Cleveland comeback.
Bullet points:
*Outside of going to Taylor while the game was in reach, Venable's only questionable in-game decision was pinch-hitting Randal Grichuk for Brenton Doyle against a righty in the eighth inning. Grichuk struck out, then couldn't haul in Halpin's leadoff double in the bottom of that inning. But there wasn't a great time to use Grichuk unless the Venable was willing to pinch-hit for Murakami with the bases loaded.
*Burke should leave 2026 with his head held high. He finished the ALDS with a fine line: 10.1 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 10 K, and the 1 HR might be the toughest one he ever surrenders.
*Similarly, congratulations to Antonacci, who was the only White Sox hitter to not strike out. He finished 1-for-4.
*Montgomery committed the game's lone error when he got handcuffed on a grounder up the middle, but started a double play to immediately erase it.
*The White Sox and Guardians finished 9-9 through 18 games in 2026. This time, Cleveland held the tiebreaker.
