The Guardians arrive at Rate Field on Wednesday with no margin left in their American League Division Series, down 2-0 to the White Sox and needing a road win to keep the season alive. Cleveland’s Game 3 plan starts with Daniel Espino as an opener, but the larger assignment is plain enough: manufacture the kind of offense that has been missing through two October games.
Key takeaways
- Game 3 is scheduled for 4 p.m. ET in Chicago, with Cleveland facing elimination.
- The Guardians have scored three runs while going 7-for-61 at the plate in the first two games.
- Steven Kwan’s ability to reach base early could set the tone for Cleveland’s lineup.
- Espino will open for the Guardians, while left-hander Sean Newcomb gets the ball for Chicago.
- José Ramírez is playing through the effects of June surgery on his left hamate.
One game is the only calculation
Manager Stephen Vogt has kept the message narrow rather than looking at the three straight wins Cleveland would need to capture the series. The club’s focus is on the next nine innings.
“You can look at needing three wins, or you can look at needing to win tomorrow,” Vogt said Tuesday. “That is how we have handled it, and that is how we will keep handling it. We have one game tomorrow, and that is the only thing within our control. We will do everything possible to win it.”
Chicago will have the home crowd behind it, with the White Sox one victory from the American League Championship Series. The Game 3 broadcast will air on TBS, truTV, UniMas and HBO Max.
Cleveland’s offense has reached a difficult place through Games 1 and 2: three total runs, seven hits in 61 at-bats, eight walks and 21 strikeouts. The Guardians did show what their preferred formula looks like in the first inning of Game 2. Kwan opened the frame with a single, and Cleveland followed with two runs for an early 2-0 lead.
Kwan’s late-season turnaround was closely tied to the club’s better offensive stretch. From Aug. 1 through the end of the regular season, the Guardians ranked sixth in the Majors with 245 runs and ninth with a .737 OPS. After the All-Star break, Kwan led MLB with a .353 batting average.
This is not a lineup built around waiting for three-run homers. No player who opened the 2026 season on Cleveland’s roster reached 20 regular-season home runs. Jo Adell, acquired at the Trade Deadline, finished with 23 homers over 159 games between the Angels and Guardians. Still, Adell, Ramírez, Angel Martínez, Chase DeLauter, Travis Bazzana and Nathaniel Lowe give the club avenues to change a game with one swing.
The long ball has already been decisive in this series. Munetaka Murakami’s two-run homer drove Chicago’s 3-0 victory in Game 1. Adell came within a few feet of answering in Game 2, sending a high drive off the 19-foot left-field wall at Progressive Field in the eighth inning. Statcast projected the ball at 413 feet, a home run in 19 ballparks. Instead, it stayed in play, and Cleveland remains searching for a timely extra-base hit.
Espino opens, and Ramírez keeps grinding
The White Sox have made Cleveland uncomfortable with a pitching arrangement that uses openers and then sends traditional starters into relief for multiple innings. The Guardians will answer with their own version of that approach in Game 3.
Espino, 25, will make the start, though Vogt has not named the pitcher who will take the bulk of the innings. Tanner Bibee, Foster Griffin and Joey Cantillo are possibilities. Cantillo followed Espino as the bulk pitcher three times during September. Cleveland also could move from Espino to a reliever before bringing in one of its starters. Both clubs should have their full pitching staffs available after Tuesday’s off-day.
Vogt’s regular-season view of bullpen games was that an offense must knock one link out of the chain before the entire plan settles in. Cleveland touched Anthony Kay and Newcomb for two runs in Game 2, but did not capitalize often enough after that. Newcomb now gets another chance to help Chicago close the series.
Ramírez remains the central figure in Cleveland’s effort, even while his left hand has limited him since the June hamate procedure. He went 0-for-6 with two walks and three strikeouts in the opening two games and has not looked like his usual self for much of the season. The expectation is that he will not be fully recovered until 2027.
Even so, Ramírez has had moments since returning from surgery, and he can influence an inning with his legs as well as his bat. In an elimination game, Cleveland needs him to create something.
“There is no secret that it has been a struggle,” Ramírez said through interpreter Agustin Rivero. “We take it one day at a time. Maybe tomorrow is when we begin to break out, become more aggressive at the plate, and everything changes. For us, it is one game at a time.”
