The Cleveland Guardians have their backs against the wall.
They’ve fallen behind the Chicago White Sox 2-0 in the best-of-five ALDS.
Unless the Guardians win three games in a row, their season will be over.
It’s not Gavin Williams’ fault, though. The right-handed pitcher they call the “Big Rig” did everything he could during Monday night’s Game 2.
The problem is that the Guardians’ bats didn’t have any damage in them to keep pace with the White Sox.
For two consecutive games, Cleveland has struggled to push runs across the plate. So no matter how dominant Parker Messick or Williams decided to be in the opening two games of this series, the batting order was much too likely to let them down.
Gavin Williams Joins Bartolo Colon
For those needing a smile, though, consider what Williams achieved on Monday night.
He had the most strikeouts for a Cleveland baseball pitcher in a playoff game since Bartolo Colon.
Williams finished with 11 punchouts. He was quite dominant, including one streak of striking out six batters in a row.
Colon had been the most recent Cleveland pitcher to strike out double-digit hitters in a postseason game.
Back in Game 1 of the 2001 ALDS, Colon struck out 10 batters.
Colon was also the last guy with 11 strikeouts in the playoffs. He did that in Game 1 of the 1999 ALDS.
The 11 Ks ranks second in the history of the Cleveland franchise for a playoff game.
The only man with more: Charles Nagy. He had 12 strikeouts in Game 4 of the 1996 ALDS.
This means that none of the Guardians’ top-level pitchers from before the ’90s had this many strikeouts in a playoff game.
Of course, strikeouts didn’t used to be so prominent, but it’s still an impressive list for Williams to rank so highly on.
Wait, Bartolo Colon?
Yep, Colon was once a phenom for the Cleveland then-Indians.
He was eventually traded away, and then he became a long-tenured journeyman with a big belly who threw slow but nasty two-seam fastballs on the corners.
Back then, though, Colon was a flamethrower. He was one of the most exciting young players in the sport.
It’s not how many baseball fans remember Colon, because he stuck around so long as a different type of player. But it’s worth remembering Colon like that, too.
Williams gave Cleveland fans a reason to think about early-career Colon on Monday night. It may have served as a good distraction, because the Guardians’ offense hadn’t provided those in Progressive Field’s stands a better reason to smile.
At least Colon elicits smiles from baseball fans young and old. He was special, at every stage of his career.
Williams, too, has been special this season. It just wasn’t enough for a win on Monday night.
Guardians’ Gavin Williams Makes Bartolo Colon History