White Sox take 2-0 ALDS lead, one win from first ALCS trip since 2005

The Chicago White Sox beat the Cleveland Guardians 4-3 on Monday afternoon at Progressive Field, taking a 2-0 lead in the American League Division Series and moving one victory from a berth in the ALCS for the first time since the franchise's 2005 World Series championship season. A go-ahead double from rookie outfielder Braden Montgomery in the sixth inning, followed by more than five innings of one-hit relief from Sean Burke, turned around a game Cleveland had led early.

Chicago, which clinched the American League's final Wild Card spot and then swept the Houston Astros in the Wild Card Series, improved to 4-0 in the 2026 postseason without a loss. The official recap on MLB.com described the result as a continuation of the most improbable run in franchise history, one that began from a team that barely qualified for the 12-team postseason field in the final days of the regular season.

The numbers

Cleveland scored first, building a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning after loading the bases and benefiting from a throwing error that let a second runner score. The White Sox answered with a run in the fourth on a Munetaka Murakami single. The decisive inning came in the sixth: with runners in scoring position, Montgomery lined a double down the right-field line off reliever Erik Sabrowski to score two runs and give Chicago a 3-2 lead, and Chase Meidroth followed with an RBI single to make it 4-2. Cleveland's Jo Adell tripled home a run in the eighth to cut the margin to 4-3, but the White Sox held on.

On the mound, Burke worked 5⅓ innings of relief, allowing one run on one hit while striking out six, a stretch in which he retired 13 consecutive Cleveland batters at one point. Grant Taylor finished the game for his second save of the series. Cleveland starter Gavin Williams struck out 11 over just more than five innings but was saddled with the loss after his offense managed only three runs on seven hits across the game.

How Chicago got here

The scale of the turnaround is difficult to overstate. In 2024, the White Sox set the modern-era record for losses in a season, finishing 39-121 — a mark confirmed by MLB.com at the time as the worst in the post-1900 era, surpassing the 1962 Mets. Two years later, after trades, a rebuilt pitching staff and a wave of young position players including Montgomery — acquired from Boston in the 2024 trade that sent left-hander Garrett Crochet to the Red Sox — Chicago went from afterthought to a team that led the American League in runs scored in 2026, according to reporting from Outkick.

The Guardians, by contrast, arrived in this series as the division winner, having edged the White Sox for the AL Central title late in the season. They had also been division favorites for much of the summer behind a deep bullpen and a pitching staff that ranked among the league's stingiest. The first two games of this series, both decided late, have instead gone to Chicago, and both were low-scoring, tightly contested games that came down to a handful of plays — a pattern a Boston Globe account of Monday's game noted has defined the matchup so far.

Who is affected

For the White Sox, the stakes of Wednesday's Game 3 are straightforward: a win at home sends the franchise to the ALCS for the first time in 21 years, with a trip to the World Series within reach for a roster built largely over the past two offseasons. Burke, who entered the bullpen mix for this series after spending the season as a starter, has emerged as one of the pitching staff's most important arms in October. Montgomery, who was called up to the majors only in June, has gone from rookie with an uncertain long-term role to a central figure in the lineup during the sport's highest-leverage month.

For Cleveland, the loss leaves the Guardians facing elimination with two games left to play, both now scheduled in Chicago. A team that reached the postseason as AL Central champions now must win three straight games on the road to advance, a tall order against a White Sox pitching staff that has not allowed more than three runs in regulation in any of its four playoff wins this October.

Reaction

Montgomery, who has become one of the storylines of Chicago's run since his midseason call-up, described the feeling of delivering the go-ahead hit in a winner-take-all atmosphere, in comments carried in a Yahoo Sports feature on the game.

"It's a feeling like no other. You want to replicate that feeling every night."

Those comments echoed the tenor of a clubhouse that has treated each postseason win as validation of a rebuild that, as recently as two years ago, was being measured in historic losses rather than playoff appearances. Cleveland's manager and players have largely declined to discuss the series in terms of panic, noting that the Guardians have faced elimination scenarios before during the regular season and rallied, though the margin for error has now narrowed considerably.

What happens next

The series shifts to Chicago's Rate Field for Game 3 on Wednesday, with the White Sox needing one more win to close it out and advance to the ALCS. A White Sox victory would mark the franchise's first trip to the league championship round since it went on to win the World Series in 2005. Should Cleveland win Wednesday, the series would continue with a potential Game 4 on Thursday and, if necessary, a Game 5 back in Cleveland. For now, Chicago sits in position to complete one of the more unlikely turnarounds in recent baseball history, with a pitching staff and a rookie-laden lineup that have combined to win four straight games when the season was on the line.