{"id":827303,"date":"2026-10-12T03:42:37","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T03:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/827303\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T03:42:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T03:42:37","slug":"column-chicago-white-sox-vow-to-get-back-up-after-alds-knockout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/827303\/","title":{"rendered":"Column: Chicago White Sox vow to get back up after ALDS knockout"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND \u2014 Three years after knocking out Tim Anderson, Cleveland Guardians third baseman Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00edrez knocked the Chicago White Sox out of the postseason.<\/p>\n

Or did the White Sox knock themselves out?<\/p>\n

It was hard to tell after the Guardians beat the Sox 2-0<\/a> in Game 5 of the American League Division Series on Saturday at Progressive Field, taking the final three games<\/a> after putting themselves in a 2-0 hole.<\/p>\n

Ram\u00edrez\u2019s two-run, fourth-inning home run off Sean Burke gave the Guardians the lead, and the Sox were already down for the count. They didn\u2019t notch a hit off starter Gavin Williams until two outs in the sixth and struck out a major-league-record 21 times \u2014 including 12 against Williams \u2014 in a listless offensive performance that sent them home.<\/p>\n

\"WhiteWhite Sox designated hitter Andrew Benintendi walks to the dugout after striking out in the fifth inning against the Guardians in Game 5 of the ALDS in Cleveland on Oct. 10, 2026. (Chris Sweda\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

So a storybook Sox season turned into a fractured fairy tale in the end. For 6\u00bd months it was a moonage daydream. And for the last three games it was a Freddy Krueger-like nightmare.<\/p>\n

Was the tank just empty?<\/p>\n

\u201cNot running out of gas,\u201d left fielder Sam Antonacci said. \u201cJust a little uptick with the chase rate, and they threw some really good arms. But credit to their arms and a lack of awareness of the zone on our end.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Guardians had 52 combined strikeouts in the three Sox losses \u2014 a postseason-record 19 in Game 3, 12 in Game 4 and then breaking the record set in Game 3 with 21 on Saturday. Their 75 strikeouts in five games also set an ALDS record.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey pitched their asses off those last three games,\u201d Antonacci said. \u201cAnd it felt like we were allergic to that big hit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams struck out 12 of the 21 hitters he faced, tying a Guardians postseason record, and threw 5 2\/3 hitless innings until Kyle Teel singled in the sixth. The Sox finished with three hits and wound up batting .211 in the postseason with four home runs, 11 extra-base hits and 96 strikeouts in seven games.<\/p>\n

The only real scoring opportunity for the Sox on Saturday came in the sixth after Williams walked Miguel Vargas to load the bases. Left-hander Erik Sabrowski came in to strike out Munetaka Murakami and end the threat.<\/p>\n

Venable said he didn\u2019t consider using Randal Grichuk to pinch-hit in that situation. Murakami struck out four times and hit .179 with 16 strikeouts in 27 at-bats in the seven postseason games.<\/p>\n

Asked what he needs to do to get to another level, Murakami was honest about his deficiencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first priority is to prevent injuries, not to get injured again,\u201d he said through his interpreter. \u201cIn the offseason I\u2019ll do whatever it takes to put that work in to get stronger and stronger.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs for mechanics, I\u2019m still swinging at the high velocity and up pitches and the breaking balls down. The chase is there. I have to get better in all the mechanics and all the aspects of baseball, and that\u2019s what I want to try to improve in the offseason and come back next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murakami helped the Sox believe in themselves, but his second-half and postseason struggles were too glaring to overlook.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe White Sox stand for the national anthem ahead of Game 5 of the ALDS against the Guardians at Progressive Field in Cleveland on Oct. 10, 2026. (Chris Sweda\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

What will Sox fans take from 2026<\/a>?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people will remember the season as a whole,\u201d outfielder Tristan Peters said. \u201cObviously it\u2019s a bit of a bitter ending, but at the beginning of the year nobody really believed in us, except for us. The fact we got this far surprised a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the fact the Sox had the Guardians down and couldn\u2019t knock them out was a bitter pill to swallow and will linger with Sox fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one was thinking, \u2018We\u2019re up 2-0, it\u2019s over,’\u201d second baseman Chase Meidroth said. \u201cYou know you\u2019re in a fight, and they executed a little better than we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will the ending change how the season is viewed?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to look at it and really see what we accomplished this year,\u201d Antonacci said. \u201cIt will take some time to sit down and look at it. But obviously the goal is the World Series. If anyone says their goal is to make it to the playoffs, it\u2019s a piss-poor goal. You play this game to win, and we didn\u2019t win. I\u2019m happy, though, because not a lot of baseball players can say they played in the postseason, so that\u2019s something to be proud of.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it hurts. It\u2019s hard to put into words, but me being a rookie, this will be a hard year to surpass, just vibes and emotions and feelings-wise. The characters that this team had<\/a> will be like no other. The hard part about this business is that this will be the last time this tight-knit group will be together. I\u2019m already looking forward to next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reliever Grant Taylor, a postseason savior<\/a> for all but Game 4 of the ALDS, said the lessons he learned were of a personal nature, including how to support his fianc\u00e9e better and build better relationships in the clubhouse. Taylor, Burke and Meidroth stood out in the postseason as future stars and clubhouse leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a good year on the field,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cBut it ended a little too soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The offensive meltdown was reminiscent of the 1983 \u201cWinning Ugly\u201d White Sox team that hit .211 with no home runs and two RBIs in a four-game loss to the Baltimore Orioles in the AL Championship Series. Stars Carlton Fisk, Harold Baines, Greg Luzinski and Ron Kittle all disappeared at the plate, ending another dream season.<\/p>\n

This team wasn\u2019t nearly as talented as the \u201983 Sox and didn\u2019t have as much overall power. But Murakami, Vargas and Colson Montgomery all hit 30-plus home runs in the regular season, then combined for three in the postseason with 33 strikeouts.<\/p>\n

It goes without saying that no one expected the Sox to get this far in the first place. They deserve all the praise in the world for doing that.<\/p>\n

But few expected them to flop so badly after sweeping the Houston Astros, winning the first two games in Cleveland and coming home to a frenzied environment at Rate Field. After being lauded by fans and media for weeks, they now need to accept the criticism that comes with a collapse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Designated hitter Andrew Benintendi said the ending will take some time to process, but the young team should be proud of its accomplishments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a hell of a year, and we\u2019ve got some experience in here now and it will only benefit us later,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to say this will be the start of better days, but rebuilds aren\u2019t always linear. The \u201983 Sox turned into the \u201984 Sox, a 74-win team that ceded the city back to the crosstown Cubs. The magic was gone, and by the summer of \u201986 the Sox fired manager Tony La Russa in a move Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf spent the next 34 years regretting, leading him to rehire La Russa before the 2021 season.<\/p>\n

After one postseason win in \u201921, it was all downhill from there.<\/p>\n

The 2026 Sox helped erase the stench of the \u201922 and \u201923 seasons and the record-setting 121-loss season under Pedro Grifol in \u201924. Venable created a culture that changed perceptions on the South Side, and the young nucleus made believers out of skeptics.<\/p>\n

With a lockout looming, no one knows what 2027 holds for MLB. It could be a while before we see the Sox on the field again. After all the postgame hugs and handshakes, one thing was obvious.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to be better,\u201d Meidroth said. \u201cIt\u2019s flat-out simple. Be better. All you can do in the offseason is clean up some little things for each person and continue to grow as an individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hopefully they\u2019ll get that chance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014 Three years after knocking out Tim Anderson, Cleveland Guardians third baseman Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00edrez knocked the Chicago…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":827304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2379],"tags":[51994,100425,100468,5,138,49,2561,51,11613,865,100469,4,2305,2303,73,17709,2003,396,2562,998],"class_list":["post-827303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-white-sox","tag-al-division-series","tag-alds-game-5","tag-amdrew-benintendi","tag-baseball","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-white-sox","tag-chicagowhitesox","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-grant-taylor","tag-jose-ramirez","tag-major-league-record-for-strikeouts-by-a-team-in-a-single-game","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-mlb-postseason","tag-munetaka-murakami","tag-sam-antonacci","tag-sean-burke","tag-white-sox","tag-whitesox","tag-will-venable"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117425874221180439","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}