No matter what changes Major League Baseball makes in the years ahead, the games themselves will remain nine innings. That’s a feature of America’s pastime that isn’t going anywhere.
And with three outs an inning, that means it takes 27 outs to set down the opposing order enough times to win, if you have more runs than them by the time you’ve reached 27 outs.
So consider, then, what the Cleveland Guardians did on Saturday night in the decisive Game 5 of the ALDS against the Chicago White Sox.
Cleveland recorded 27 outs in its 2-0 victory.
And of those 27 outs, 21 were strikeouts.
Guardians Set Record
Not only had a team never done that before in a nine-inning playoff game — record 21 outs via strikeouts — a team in MLB had never done that before in any game, including the regular season.
And given the lack of outs remaining that could’ve been strikeouts, it’d be hard for any team to ever do better than this.
Even this took until the year 2026 to achieve. And sure, it’s a strikeout-heavy era, and the White Sox are a strikeout-happy team. All the stars aligned.
But it’s still got to go down as one of the most remarkable records ever set in a playoff game.
The Guardians’ pitchers threw the ball toward home plate over and over again, as happens in every baseball game.
On this night, though, the White Sox hardly ever hit it.
Guardians’ Pitching Stats
The Guardians couldn’t have done this without Gavin Williams, who was a question mark heading into Saturday’s game.
Williams had closed out the final three outs on Thursday in ALDS Game 4, throwing 18 pitches, so Cleveland wasn’t sure he would have as much gas in the tank for Saturday night.
The pitcher they call “The Big Rig” definitely had a full tank, though.
Williams was nearly unhittable. He went 5.2 innings, allowing one hit and two walks while striking out 12.
His fastball hit 101 miles per hour on one strikeout. His curveball and sweeper were both sharp, dropping in for strikes early in counts before missing bats late.
Mostly, though, Williams just threw that heater by people, over and over again.
When he came out with the bases loaded in the sixth and Erik Sabrowski came in, the southpaw threw a fastball right past a swinging bat for strike three to escape the jam against the only guy he faced.
Hunter Gaddis then came in for four outs, allowing two hits but striking out four for all the outs he got.
And then it was closer Cade Smith. Smith went 1.2 innings, getting the final five outs. Four of them were strikeouts.
The ninth inning was fitting.
Munetaka Murakami struck out swinging.
Andrew Benintendi struck out swinging.
Tristan Peters struck out swinging.
There’s never been a night of pitching quite like the one the Guardians put together on Saturday night at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario.
Guardians Set All-Time MLB Record That May Never Be Broken