The Cleveland Guardians will host the Chicago White Sox for the fifth and deciding game of the American League Division Series on Saturday night at Progressive Field. The winner will advance to face the Tampa Bay Rays in the ALCS, while the loser will see their 2026 season draw to a close. Plainly, the stakes are high in Game 5.
To shoulder those burdens, the White Sox will turn to right-hander Sean Burke, who was their top starting pitcher in the regular season. Cleveland will counter with right-hander Gavin Williams, who notably led the AL with 248 strikeouts during the regular season. The choice of Williams is an obvious one by manager Stephen Vogt, given that standout rookie Parker Messick took the ball in Game 4.
Williams, though, is himself coming off important work in that elimination game for the Guardians: As you'll note, Williams was on the mound in relief when the Guardians secured the Game 4 win in Chicago. Now, a mere two days later, he'll start the deciding Game 5. Sarah Langs noted on Bluesky that Williams on Saturday night will become just the sixth pitcher since 1945 to record the last out of one game and then start the very next game in the same postseason series.
Here's the group that Williams will join: Of these five starts, two were in veritably ancient times when it comes to pitcher usage, and two others -- the most recent -- involved "opener" roles for the pitchers in question. That means Batista's 2001 NLDS start is the only one that's in any way instructive. In that start against the Cardinals, Batista earned four strikeouts against no walks in six innings.
Like Williams, Batista was coming off a day of rest in his start, and in his relief appearance, he logged those 12 pitches compared to Williams' 18 pitches in his relief appearance. The assumption is that Vogt is looking for some length from Williams. In an elimination game, an early and aggressively preemptive hook is always possible, especially with the bullpen coming off an off day, but Williams figures to be given at least one trip through the opposing order and perhaps two.
There's nothing about his Game 4 inning of work that would get in the way of that, especially considering he was due to throw a bullpen session on Thursday anyway. Perhaps on a more relevant note, Williams started Game 2 against the White Sox, and in that five-inning outing, he struck out a hefty 11 batters and allowed two runs on four hits. As we see above, he's already in historically rare company even before he throws a pitch in Game 5.
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