Greg Hibbard

Caleb appears ready to make the jump hopefully next year. I'm excited to see what he becomes. It's definitely nice to have insurance for Colson - his second half OPS was just .557. I fear the league has figured out how to exploit him out of the zone. I don't think Braden was rushed at all. He didn't have a great postseason, but for a 23 year old coming up, he did absolutely fine in his 400ish plate appearances.

The fact of the matter is we don’t really have even close to a real pitching staff to work with, so it should not be surprising to anyone if we lose in 5. However, this team can still win a game with offense and the right matchups. And it is a significant advantage tonight to be at home. I guess I would ask the people who have shifted their expectations this - if we make the ALCS and get swept, is that really any different than losing in 5 in the ALDS? To me, not really, but I get that Championship Series appearances are few and far between for this organization.

When Hudson went in, I got a really bad feeling. That was definitely Venable's worst call of the postseason. What on earth are we going to do with Davis Martin if we get to the next series? Would it make sense to just shut him down and get him ready for next year?

I like the lineup. LFG.

Or we could just go with Or we could just start our best overall lineup and just make substitutions later in the game. I mean, Braden got a double right handed the other day, and Colson squibbed a double down the 3rd base line in game 1 he probably will never be able to replicate in his career. I would just send out the best nine overall and make spot subs.

I'm heading to the game to arrive around 2pm. I'm going to savor today. I can't wait to take it all in. It's hard to believe they aren't going to win today, but even if they do lose, I think they'll win the series tomorrow. What an amazing journey this season has been. Best team story in baseball in a long time IMO.

What an amazing win. I thought they were cooked for sure in the first three innings. Wednesday can’t come soon enough. I can’t believe I’ll be there in person.

Anthony Kay getting the nod is another great call by Venable. He dominates lefties and is 1-0 with a 1.35 ERA against the Guardians in 4 games / 20 innings pitched. I actually prefer leaving Davis Martin out of this series if possible, as even though his ERA is good the Guardians are hitting .324 off of him.

crazy that White Sox hitters have a sub .700 OPS as a team through three straight wire to wire victories. It seems like we’ve been pounding the ball. Pitching has really been magnificent.

I'm totally leery on Martin right now too, as we have little margin for error in a 5 game series. We're going to need him if we get to the ALCS, though. So if we didn't use him until G3 or G4 in the ALDS, would he do a sim game/sidework friday or saturday? 9-10 days off feels like an eternity.

Strangely, LHB actually do almost 100 points of OPS better than RHB against Messick in his career splits.

The thing about these WC formats is that you simply can’t afford to get down a bunch right away in game 1. If you do, your 162 game season is basically all but over. If one pitcher has a bad inning, it takes down the whole franchise. You also can’t afford to be tired, make mistakes, or be in a slump if you’re one of THE star players (like Yordan or PCA) It worked out for the Sox as they jumped out and never let up. They absolutely deserved to win, and are clearly the better team, but it’s really not the best postseason format for baseball. It’s a real shame for the 4 NL WC teams (except her padres LOL) who are probably all top 8 MLB teams.

Welp, I just spent a stupid amount on playoff tickets. Hoping to be broke by the end of October!

Just a magical season.

Yeah. I’ve been saying this for weeks. I don’t understand his angle.

Three days ago if you would have told me Vargas and Murakami would be 1 for 17 combined in the first two games and we would be 3 outs from a sweep I would never have believed it.

This exactly. If we win, he has plenty of time to rest the next two days

I would love to add 1-2 more and step on their cheating faces

Hicks with heat!!!

Wow. Great inning, great call to go with Hicks. The way he looks right now, let him cook for another inning!

The astros find so many new ways to continue to try to cheat

I can’t believe it. Couldn’t have drawn this first inning up any better. Cmon Sam, deliver the kill!

One of the hidden benefits of last night is that if the Sox get to tonight's starter at all - and that includes just running high pitch counts for 4 innings - the Astros will have to be really creative with the front end of their bullpen. The Sox did very well against 4 of their 11 postseason pitchers last night and the Astros had to throw 8 guys total. I feel really good about the overall approach the Sox had at the plate. Sam really set the tone on being dialed on the zone and making sure he usually went deep into the count last night. We definitely want that to continue.

I want ron to start every game thread for the next four and a half weeks 😉

Walking on air. So many things went right tonight, and this team looked like a different playoff team than we’ve ever seen (outside of 05). Usually the Sox get overmatched early and often, this time they stepped on the jugular and never took their foot off of it. One of the most satisfying things was Colson being hit by a pitch and then teeing off in the next AB. Here’s to a clean slate after game 162!