White Sox 3, Guardians 0: Murakami, Taylor, and a Shutout in Cleveland

A 440-foot fly, then four innings from the closer.

October 3, 2026 - Cleveland - Miguel Vargas singled to open the fourth. Munetaka Murakami hit Parker Messick's first-pitch sinker 440 feet to right, and Progressive Field had a 2-0 game it never climbed out of. The Chicago White Sox beat the Cleveland Guardians 3-0 in American League Division Series Game 1 and lead the series 1-0.

Partly cloudy. 63 degrees. Wind 9 mph right to left. First pitch 1:08 p.m. ET. Attendance 34,287. The game lasted 2 hours, 49 minutes. Chicago has not trailed in 27 postseason innings, the MLB recap said, after sweeping Houston in the Wild Card Series.

Bases loaded twice. Cleveland scored from neither.

Hagen Smith opened. He threw 2 2/3 hitless innings: four strikeouts, three walks, 51 pitches. With two outs in the third he walked Steven Kwan and José Ramírez to load the bases. Will Venable called Bryan Hudson. Chase DeLauter flied to left. Inning over. Hudson got the win for that one out.

Jordan Hicks struck out two in two-thirds of the fourth and walked one. Anthony Kay inherited another loaded bases, two-out mess in the fourth. Nathaniel Lowe had doubled. Kay walked a batter. Brayan Rocchio flied to right. Cleveland put traffic on twice before the fifth and scored from none of it. ESPN's recap called those the innings that would have changed the afternoon. They did not.

Grant Taylor then threw four innings for the save: two hits, no walks, six strikeouts, 42 pitches. In the ninth he struck out Angel Martínez, Lowe, and Travis Bazzana on 11 pitches. The MLB recap called it an old-school four-inning save after a 54-pitch outing in the Wild Card Series. Venable kept handing him the ball. Taylor kept getting outs.

"That's what playoff baseball is about," Venable said, per MLB.com. "Your big dogs going out there and making big plays."

Murakami's first postseason homer. Montgomery's double.

Messick (0-1) lasted 4 1/3: four hits, two earned, two walks, six strikeouts, 87 pitches. Vargas singled to start the fourth. Murakami did not wait. First pitch. 440 feet. First postseason homer. 2-0. Daniel Espino, Erik Sabrowski, Hunter Gaddis, Tim Herrin, and Cade Smith followed. The only other Chicago run came in the seventh. Kyle Teel scored on Colson Montgomery's double down the left-field line. 3-0.

Murakami finished 2-for-4 with two RBI. Montgomery went 2-for-3 with the double and the last run batted in. Vargas went 1-for-2 with two walks and the run that started the homer. Chicago had six hits. It needed three runs. It got them.

Cleveland had three hits. Lowe doubled. Bazzana doubled. Patrick Bailey singled. Jo Adell struck out four times in four at-bats. Ramírez went 0-for-3 with a walk. Kwan went 0-for-3 with a walk and a double play. The Guardians left seven on. They never scored.

"This is when we need to do it," Montgomery said, per MLB.com. "It's just postseason baseball. We feel like we are all locked in."

Chicago goes home with a lead. Cleveland has Williams on Monday.

Game 2 is Monday at Progressive Field. The MLB recap said Gavin Williams is lined up for Cleveland, and that a Chicago win or loss on Monday still guarantees two games at Rate Field after Sunday's off day. Teel, looking ahead to home playoff baseball, told MLB.com he has been dreaming about that since he got here.

Cleveland won the AL Central by one game over these White Sox in the regular season. Saturday it had the bases loaded twice and a rookie left-hander on the mound and still lost 3-0. The layoff after the bye did not invent those fly balls. Chicago's bullpen game did.

AthX Engine after the baseball

AthX Engine (our projection and scoring system) put Chicago at 9 team fantasy points on a 3-0. Taylor had 21 pitching FP on four scoreless innings and a save. Murakami had 6 hitting FP. Cleveland sat at -4. Those numbers are the shutout: a win, three runs, none against, and a closer who threw a third of the game.

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.*