{"id":837931,"date":"2026-10-26T04:16:48","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T04:16:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/837931\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T04:16:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T04:16:48","slug":"chicago-white-sox-what-to-know-about-alds-game-4-vs-guardians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/837931\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago White Sox: What to know about ALDS Game 4 vs. Guardians"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Guardians have met 16 times between the regular season and the first three games of the American League Division Series.<\/p>\n

And they\u2019ve been separated by one run \u2014 69 for the Guardians and 68 for the Sox.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been incredible,\u201d Sox manager Will Venable said of the matchups ahead of Thursday\u2019s Game 4 at Rate Field. \u201cI think we\u2019re very different teams, but the way that these clubs are built as far as the character of each team, it\u2019s very clear that you got a bunch of good guys on both sides that go out and play the game the right way. They\u2019re very talented players. They play very hard.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been fun to watch. It\u2019s tough and obviously they\u2019re very competitive, but we\u2019re very competitive, and it\u2019s been a great battle. But it has been fun to watch, and it\u2019s cool that it\u2019s coming down to this series here where we have an opportunity to continue that battle. Someone\u2019s going to leave here having won that battle, but you look at the course of this year and really the season of the battle between us, there\u2019s some cool stuff that really has been fun to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the Sox holding a 2-1 edge in the ALDS, here\u2019s what to know before Game 4.<\/p>\n

Amped up
\n\"WhiteWhite Sox second baseman Chase Meidroth strikes out to end the seventh inning against the Guardians in Game 3 of their AL Division Series on Oct. 7, 2026, at Rate Field in Chicago. (Chris Sweda\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

Venable saw Game 3 as a \u201cvery good tutorial\u201d for Game 4.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really just the environment,\u201d Venable said. \u201cWe talked about it (Wednesday), that we knew this was going to be a juiced-up environment, and I thought it impacted us. I thought you saw us chase a lot more.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was one of our highest chase rates of the year. We were a little sped up (Wednesday), so we get to hit the reset button on understanding the environment a little bit better \u2014 (Guardians starter Parker) Messick, a guy we just faced, we know him well. So at this point, there\u2019s not going to be any secrets, especially as far as the environment goes, having experienced it (Wednesday).\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sox struck out 19 times in Game 3 \u2014 the most in a nine-inning postseason game in MLB history.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously you play in front of a crowd like that, you get amped up and maybe swing at pitches you wouldn\u2019t normally swing at,\u201d Sox outfielder Tristan Peters said. \u201cI also think, too, the offense (Wednesday), we ran into a few balls, but they also found gloves. That was a tough side of it too. I think we put together some pretty good at-bats.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut yeah, maybe having a little more patience is going to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Familiar foe
\n\"GuardiansGuardians starting pitcher Parker Messick throws against the White Sox in Game 1 of an AL Division Series on Saturday, Oct. 3, in Cleveland. (John J. Kim\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

Thursday marked the sixth time the Sox have faced Messick. That includes Game 1 at Progressive Field, when the left-hander allowed two runs on four hits in 4 1\/3 innings.<\/p>\n

Messick struck out six and walked two in the 3-0 loss to the Sox<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen him a lot,\u201d Peters said. \u201cI think we know how he\u2019s going to pitch us. Maybe he changes it up a little bit, but we know what he\u2019s got. I\u2019m very confident in our guys that we\u2019ll hit him well.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the mound
\n\"WhiteWhite Sox pitcher Hagen Smith watches at Cleveland third baseman Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00edrez comes around third base to score in the third inning of Game 3 of their AL Division Series on Oct. 7, 2026, at Rate Field. (Chris Sweda\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

Hagen Smith assumed he would be available after pitching two-thirds of an inning Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel good,\u201d the lefty said after the game.<\/p>\n

The Sox turned to Smith to start Game 4 as the opener. Options for bulk included Erick Fedde and Anthony Kay.<\/p>\n

Smith allowed one run on one hit with two walks Wednesday, including the three-run triple to Jo Adell in the third inning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought Hagen was good,\u201d Venable said. \u201cThe walk there obviously wasn\u2019t great, and we talked about how free passes were going to impact this series. Got away with it the first couple games. Obviously didn\u2019t (Wednesday, walking 10 as a team). The Adell bat, I thought Adell did a good job of covering the heater going the other way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought Hagen looked good. I thought the stuff looked good. Just maybe a little bit of execution there that put him in a little bit of a tough spot. He\u2019s our guy. We\u2019ve leaned on him the entire postseason. Excited he\u2019s taking the ball to give us a start.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the Sox lineup, with Smith getting the start.<\/p>\n

Chase Meidroth 2B
\nRandal Grichuk LF
\nMiguel Vargas 3B
\nMunetaka Murakami 1B
\nTommy Pham DH
\nBrenton Doyle CF
\nKyle Teel C
\nBraden Montgomery RF
\nColson Montgomery SS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Guardians have met 16 times between the regular season and the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":837932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2379],"tags":[52800,5,138,49,2561,51,3632,4,2305,34644,30019,396,101435,47224,2562,998],"class_list":["post-837931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-white-sox","tag-alds-game-4","tag-baseball","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-white-sox","tag-chicagowhitesox","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-hagen-smith","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-parker-messick","tag-tristan-peters","tag-white-sox","tag-white-sox-guardians-game-4","tag-white-sox-guardians-score","tag-whitesox","tag-will-venable"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117505284306142998","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837931","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=837931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}