White Sox 4, Guardians 3: Montgomery's Sixth-Inning Double Took Game 2

First pitch. Right-field line. Then Chicago had the lead.

October 5, 2026 - Cleveland - Erik Sabrowski had already walked Randal Grichuk. He had already bounced a wild pitch. Tommy Pham had already flied to shallow left. Braden Montgomery still got the first-pitch fastball he wanted. He doubled it down the right-field line. Miguel Vargas scored. Grichuk scored. The Chicago White Sox had a 3-2 lead they would not give back.

Chase Meidroth singled Montgomery home off Hunter Gaddis. 4-2. The White Sox beat the Cleveland Guardians 4-3 in American League Division Series Game 2 and lead the series 2-0.

Clear. 61 degrees. Wind 13 mph in from center. First pitch 5:04 p.m. ET. Attendance 32,050. The game lasted 3 hours, 6 minutes. Chicago is 4-0 this postseason, all on the road, the MLB recap said. One win at Rate Field would send the club to the ALCS for the first time since 2005.

"I was just ready for something to attack, and I was ready for his hardest stuff," Montgomery said, per ESPN. "I can't even describe how it felt. It's exhilarating. I was just taking it all in."

Two runs on an error, then 27 innings of trailing ended.

Chicago had not trailed in this postseason. That lasted until the first inning Monday.

Steven Kwan singled. José Ramírez walked. Chase DeLauter grounded into a force that moved both up. Anthony Kay faced those three, threw 17 pitches, and left with one out. Sean Newcomb intentionally walked Jo Adell. Nathaniel Lowe chopped one back to the mound. Newcomb threw it wide of first. Kwan scored. Ramírez scored. Adell went to third. 2-0 Guardians.

ESPN called it the first time in four playoff games Chicago had been behind. Angel Martínez and Travis Bazzana struck out behind Lowe. The two runs stayed unearned. They still sat on the board until the fourth.

Gavin Williams did not allow a hit until then. Kyle Teel singled to lead off the fourth. Vargas walked. Munetaka Murakami singled Teel home. 2-1. Andrew Benintendi struck out. Tristan Peters flied out. Montgomery struck out. Williams had the lead and 11 strikeouts by the time he left. ESPN said that tied for the second-most by a Cleveland pitcher in a postseason game, and that he became the first Guardian to strike out five straight in October.

Teel told MLB.com the fans who stuck through three 100-loss seasons now get a home playoff game. The run he scored was the first crack.

Burke for 5 1/3. Thirteen in a row. Then Adell almost tied it.

Sean Burke entered with one out in the third. He inherited a bullpen game and turned it into a start. Five and a third innings. One hit. One earned run. One walk. Six strikeouts. 83 pitches, 53 strikes. After Bazzana walked with one out in the fourth, Burke retired 13 straight until DeLauter singled in the eighth.

"I was able to settle in and find my groove," Burke said, per ESPN. "I've had openers before, but not in this situation, so I talked with a lot of guys. It's just normal baseball when you get into that game."

Grant Taylor took over with DeLauter on. Adell tripled on the first pitch, just missing the left-center seats, the MLB recap said. 4-3. Lowe lined to left on the next pitch. Sam Antonacci ran it down. Taylor threw 1 1/3 for his second save in two games: one hit, no walks, seven pitches in the eighth, then a 1-2-3 ninth. Martínez grounded out. Bazzana flied to Brenton Doyle. Patrick Bailey flied to Doyle.

Williams (no decision) went five-plus: four hits, two earned, three walks, 11 strikeouts, 98 pitches. Sabrowski (0-1) took the loss and the blown save: two-thirds of an inning, two earned, the wild pitch, the walk to Grichuk. Gaddis allowed Meidroth's single. Shawn Armstrong and Cade Smith kept it 4-3 after that. Cleveland never tied it.

The sixth that sent the series to Chicago.

Vargas had walked his first two times against Williams. He singled to left to open the sixth and ended Williams's night. Murakami grounded him to second against Sabrowski. Grichuk pinch-hit and walked on four pitches. Wild pitch. Pham's fly to left was the out that almost made it a wasted inning. Montgomery did not wait. First pitch. Two runs. Meidroth's single made it three.

Vargas finished 1-for-2 with two walks and the run that started the rally. Montgomery went 1-for-4 with the double and two RBI. Meidroth went 2-for-4 with the last RBI. Murakami went 1-for-4 with the fourth-inning single. Chicago had six hits. Cleveland had four. Each club made one error. Newcomb's throw in the first was the only one that scored two.

"Right now, we are just focused on this series and winning every inning," Vargas said, per MLB.com. "That puts us in a better spot for winning the game every time."

Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt told ESPN the Guardians have had two-game stretches like this all year and come back. "We've got our work cut out for us," he said. "This team plays its best with its back against the wall."

Rate Field gets October baseball. Cleveland has to steal one there.

Game 3 is Wednesday afternoon at Rate Field. The MLB recap said both remaining Chicago dates, if necessary, are already sellouts. Teams up 2-0 in best-of-five series have won 83 of 93, that wrap said. Clubs that took the first two on the road in the current 2-2-1 Division Series format have won 17 of 19. The last team to climb out of an 0-2 hole in a best-of-five was the 2017 Yankees against these Guardians.

Taylor, who threw four innings in Game 1 and 1 1/3 here, told MLB.com the fans deserve it. Will Venable told ESPN the club has been confident all year and is excited to bring playoff baseball home. Chicago has not clinched a postseason series at home since Oct. 14, 1906, the MLB recap said. Wednesday is the first chance to change that.

Cleveland scored twice in the first on an error and once in the eighth on Adell's triple. In between, Burke made the middle of the game look like Saturday's shutout. One double in the sixth is why the White Sox fly home up 2-0.

AthX Engine after the baseball

AthX Engine (our projection and scoring system) put Chicago at 8 team fantasy points on a 4-3. Burke had 19.33 pitching FP. Williams had 15 in a no-decision. Vargas had 4 hitting FP. Montgomery had 3. Cleveland sat at 1. Those numbers are the rally: a win, four runs, three against, and a bulk reliever who retired 13 in a row after the first-inning mess.

Fantasy points measure the night under platform scoring rules. Share prices also move with traders through dynamic pricing. They are related. They are not the same number.

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*Sources: MLB.com schedule; MLB Gameday wrap; ESPN scoreboard; ESPN box score; ESPN recap; AthX Engine scoring applied to verified box stats. Information only; not financial advice.*