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The Guardians will face their kryptonite when they welcome the White Sox for the winner-take-all American League Division Series Game 5 on Saturday night in Cleveland.
Breakout star Sean Burke will be on the mound for Chicago.
If his previous outings are any indication, the Guards are going to have a tough time scoring.
He held the Guardians to one run over 6 ⅓ innings on June 23, then limited them to one run across six innings with 11 strikeouts less than two weeks later.
Burke dominated them again in September, firing five innings without allowing an earned run in a 7-3 White Sox win at Progressive Field.
That trend carried into this series, when he allowed just one hit and one run over 5 ⅓ innings of relief in Game 2, at one point retiring 13 straight Cleveland hitters.
Head-to-head stats can be noisy, but dominance like that is hard to ignore.
White Sox manager Will Venable famously hasn’t been shy to go to his bullpen early during this playoff run, and that should still be the case with his team’s season on the line on Saturday.
That should give the Guardians, who have struggled at the plate aside from Thursday’s offensive breakout this postseason, few chances — if any, given how well he’s pitched against them — to get to Burke.
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If, somehow, Burke gets in trouble, look for Venable to have a quick hook, limiting the damage before Cleveland can put together a crooked number against the right-hander.
The play: Sean Burke to allow fewer than 1.5 earned runs (-140, DraftKings Sportsbook)
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Dylan Svoboda is a versatile writer and analyst across many sports. He’s particularly knowledgeable about the big three — MLB, the NFL and the NBA.
