At long last, the Cleveland Guardians showed some signs of life on Wednesday evening, beating the Chicago White Sox 9-3 and trimming their AL Division Series lead in half, 2-1. Stephen Vogt’s team is still facing elimination with a loss on Thursday, but they can even the best-of-five affair if they win behind Parker Messick.
After being blanked in Game 1 and scoring just three times in Game 2, Cleveland’s offense finally woke up on Wednesday. It produced nine runs, 11 hits (including four extra-base hits), and plenty of hard contact.
Modern tools allow us to measure ‘hard-hit balls’, putting the threshold to consider them as such at 95 mph or more. You can see how Guardians’ hitters are improving every game in this department: they had just five hard-hit balls in the opener, which they lost 3-0.
In the second game of the series, they had ten, which was an encouraging sign despite the loss. On Wednesday’s Game 3, Cleveland batters racked up 11 balls hit at 95+ mph.
“Yesterday, DeLauter, Ramirez, hard-hit balls. They’re in the first inning, and it just seemed like this is not meant to be. We are not getting anything to go our way, and that changed over the course of the next three hours, almost four hours. It feels like that was such a change in attitude, confidence, and now, you feel like you can get to them. Now, you’re not worried. There’s nothing the White Sox present where you’re like, ‘Oh boy, we don’t have anything for them.’ Everything changed over the course of three and a half hours,” analyst Anthony Lima said.
“Everything changed over the course of three and a half hours.”
➡️ @SportsBoyTony w/ @KenCarman on how the Guardians’ win changed the energy and confidence around the series.#Guardians pic.twitter.com/Wx21wwvnqK
— 92.3 The Fan (@923TheFan) October 8, 2026
Lima basically suggested that all the quality contact from Games 2 and 3 finally started finding grass instead of gloves. It happens sometimes: luck is not always on one’s side. For a couple of hours, at least, the gods of fortune smiled on the Guardians and finally rewarded their patience and solid hitting.
Jose Ramirez alone had two balls hit over 100 mph, and Chase DeLauter had four, with just one hit to show for it. It sure seems like the Guardians are starting to figure out the White Sox’s pitchers and that their strategy of using relievers for long stretches is backfiring.
Chicago is still one win away from the League Championship Series. If Cleveland wins on Thursday, however, everything will be tied ahead of a winner-takes-all Game 5 at Progressive Field.
NEXT: Foster Griffin Opens Up About His Performance In Game 3
