MLB

Guardians Rip Up the Script, Beat White Sox 9-5 to Force Winner-Take-All Game 5

By The Sports Nus Staff | October 9, 2026

Illustration of a Cleveland Guardians slugger launching a home run at night

The Cleveland Guardians refused to go home. Down 2-0 in the series and trailing early at a deafening Rate Field, Cleveland exploded for six runs in the sixth inning and beat the Chicago White Sox 9-5 in ALDS Game 4 on Thursday night, forcing a winner-take-all Game 5 Saturday in Cleveland.

The White Sox took Games 1 and 2 in Cleveland and looked ready to close it out at home. Instead the Guardians took both games in Chicago, and now the series returns to Progressive Field with everything on the line.

The night belonged to two unlikely and one very likely hero. Trailing 2-0 in the fifth, pinch-hitter Patrick Bailey tagged Erick Fedde for a 376-foot solo shot, the hardest-hit ball of his career, to get Cleveland on the board. Two batters later, Jose Ramirez crushed a go-ahead two-run homer off Jordan Hicks. Chicago answered with two in the bottom of the fifth to retake the lead 4-3, but the sixth was all Guardians: six runs on five hits, including a go-ahead RBI single from Bailey and another RBI knock from Ramirez, to seize a 9-4 lead they never gave back.

Bailey finished 2-for-3 with a homer, two runs and two RBI after not even starting the game. Ramirez went 2-for-5 with a homer and three RBI. Miguel Vargas opened the ninth with a homer for Chicago, but Gavin Williams, who had been lined up to start Game 5, came out of the bullpen to close it out instead.

The pitching plan, as manager Stephen Vogt admitted, did not survive contact with reality. Starter Parker Messick walked four in three innings and heard serenading of "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" from the sellout crowd as he walked off. Cleveland needed eight pitchers to get through nine innings.

"Obviously, the script got ripped up in the third," Vogt said. "When you have to go to the bullpen early, you got to get creative in a win-or-go-home. The fifth inning, we didn't anticipate using three different pitchers in that inning. So when we got down to it, we're looking at what we got left."

What they have left is a home game with everything at stake. Since MLB went to the best-of-five division series in 1995, only seven teams have completed the comeback after falling behind 2-0. The Guardians are one win from becoming the eighth, and the winner gets the Tampa Bay Rays in the ALCS.

The loss snapped Chicago's four-game postseason winning streak and spoiled a raucous night on the South Side. The White Sox had the champagne on ice twice. Now they have to win one game in Cleveland or go home.

Betting angle

Game 5 is a coin flip wearing a costume. Cleveland is home, but the Guardians just burned eight pitchers to survive Game 4 and may have already used their planned Game 5 starter in relief. That screams bullpen game, and bullpen games in winner-take-all spots are chaos.

The history says only seven teams have ever come back from 0-2 in this format, which makes Cleveland feel like destiny. The pitching says Chicago might actually be the steadier side. When the story and the arms disagree, take the price, not the narrative. If the Guardians are getting plus money at home with momentum, that is the only way to play it.