Cleveland Guardians Ripped Up the Script in ALDS Game 4 Win

The Cleveland Guardians went into Game 4 of the ALDS with a plan to beat the Chicago White Sox and extend the series to Game 5 at Progressive Field on Saturday.

The Guardians did just that with the 9-5 victory to tie the series back at two games apiece. However, the way Cleveland won the game wasn’t what it had in mind.

As manager Stephen Vogt said after the game, the Guardians “ripped up the script.”

In a perfect world, Parker Messick would have given at least four, maybe even five, innings before turning the ball back over to the bullpen. The rookie was stellar against the White Sox in his Game 1 outing.

Unfortunately, as Vogt alluded to, Messick’s command wasn’t as sharp as it’s been in other outings in 2026. Cleveland’s skipper was forced to make a pitching change in the third inning after the starter got into a jam.

That moment was when the Guardians threw out the game plan they had written up.

Cleveland ended up using seven more pitchers to get to the end of the game, with some of those players appearing in roles they’d never been in before.

Tanner Bibee made his first appearance in the playoffs, but he came in a relief role with the starting pitcher by trade coming on in the fifth inning. He only pitched one-third of an inning.

It was inevitable that Cade Smith would be on for the Guardians at some point in an elimination game, but the surprise was that he took the mound in the eighth inning while Cleveland had a five-run lead.

Cleveland’s closer went back out for the ninth inning, gave up a home run, and didn’t record an out, leading to the biggest shock of the game: Gavin Williams, the Guardians’ Game 2 pitcher and presumed Game 5 starter, came out of the bullpen to close the game out.

It wasn’t a save situation, and the Guardians had a healthy lead, but the team simply wasn’t going to take any chances with the season on the line and gave the ball to the best available pitcher on the staff.

“Obviously, the script tonight got ripped up in the third. And when you have to go to the bullpen early, you got to get creative in a win-or-go-home,” Vogt said postgame.

Vogt noted that the number of pitchers Cleveland used on Thursday certainly wasn’t ideal. That said, none of them, outside of Cade, who threw 31 pitches, had outrageously long outings or high pitch counts.

As of Friday morning, the Guardians haven’t named a starting pitcher for Game 5 yet. Will

One thing is for sure: Game 4 was an all-hands-on-deck win for Cleveland, and if the Guardians want to win Game 5, they need to be ready to improvise once again.